POTSTICKERS, Part 2 Of 2

Servings: 2
Ingredients:

See Part 1

: Continued from Part 1

NOTES:

* Delicious Northern Chinese snack and hacker\’s staple — Hackers on both
coasts and most places in between love potstickers (though if you\’re from
the Right Coast, you probably know them as Peking Ravioli, or just ravs.
This recipe is based on one found in Chef Chu\’s Distinctive Cuisine of
China. Total preparation time is about 45 minutes. They don\’t come out as
good as the ones from Cho\’s in Mountain View, but if you don\’t happen to be
within 45 minutes of Mountain View, they\’ll do very nicely, thank you.
Servings: Makes about 2 dozen.

* You can freeze uncooked potstickers for later use, if you squeeze out
the water from the cabbage during preparation (in a colander or
cheesecloth). Freeze potstickers separately on cookie sheets until firm,
then put them in plastic bags. When rolling out the pancakes, leave the
centers slightly thicker than the edges. A thicker center will hold up
better during the browning.

* If you prefer, steam potstickers for about 12 minutes over boiling water
instead of pan-frying. (No self-respecting hacker would be caught eating
steamed potstickers, though.)

* These are really not hard to make, and come out quite nicely! Following
the dough recipe above leads to a fairly dry and floury dough; this makes
it hard to roll out and pleat. Feel free to add a little more water. There
are also now commercially available potsticker presses that take care of
folding and pleating; they\’re cheap and plastic and work rather well.

* The perfect potsticker is uniformly brown with a thick brown area on the
bottom (where it sticks to the pot); it seems that achieving this only
comes with practice. I tend to fry both sides a bit before adding the
water; this helps. Beware of too much heat; the bottom will bubble and
crack. This doesn\’t taste any different, but doesn\’t look as nice.

* If you don\’t cook the whole batch at once, store the potstickers so that
they don\’t touch; the dough tends to stick to itself, so the potstickers
may tear as you remove them.

* Many restaurants serve Hoy Sin sauce (hoisin) instead of hot sauce.

: Difficulty: moderate.
: Time: 45 minutes.
: Precision: measure the ingredients.

: Chris Kent
: DEC Western Research Lab, Palo Alto, California
: kent@decwrl.DEC.COM {ihnp4,ucbvax,decvax}!decwrl!kent

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