What are some of your go-to comfort foods? If I had to pick three right now, they would be (in no particular order) pasta, pizza and potstickers. So I was thrilled to receive a copy of First Generation from the folks at Ten Speed Press. It has a chapter devoted to dumplings and bao, which is how I ended up cooking these gorgeous guōtiē over the weekend.
Vegetable potstickers are a labor of love. The recipe involves:
- Making the wrapper dough (Note: If you’re short on time, store-bought wrappers will work just fine.)
- Preparing the filling, which is a multi-step process in itself
- Shaping and frying the dumplings
But when you’re all finished, you’ll have something delicious to show. Serve vegetable potstickers with your favorite dipping sauce, like Fly By Jing’s Sichuan chili crisp or soy sauce mixed with sesame oil. After one bite, you’ll be glad you put in the effort to craft them by hand.
Recipe adapted from First Generation.
- 1½ cups baby spinach leaves
- 1 cup water
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 4 baby bok choy
- 2 ounces cellophane noodles
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 8 ounces shiitake mushrooms, stems removed and finely diced
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
- ½ cup finely diced fried bean curd
- 4 green onions, thinly sliced
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon light brown sugar
- In a blender, purée spinach and water until smooth. Strain mixture through a fine-mesh sieve and measure out ¾ cup of the liquid.
- In a large bowl, heat spinach liquid until warm - about 30 seconds in the microwave should do. Add flour and stir everything until it comes together to form a shaggy ball. Then knead the dough by hand until it’s smooth and elastic - this will take about 10 minutes. Shape dough into a ball, cover with plastic wrap and let it sit for 30 minutes.
- Divide dough into four equal parts and roll each part into a 6" log. Cut each log into 6 equal segments for a total of 24 pieces.
- Place one piece of dough on a lightly floured work surface, cut side up, and roll out to a 4" circle. Repeat with remaining pieces of dough.
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add bok choy and cook for 3 minutes. Use tongs to remove bok choy from water and rinse with cold water. Finely chop bok choy. Wrap the chopped bok choy in cheesecloth and squeeze to remove as much liquid as you can; transfer to a large bowl.
- Cook cellophane noodles according to package directions. Rinse with cold water, drain well and cut into ¼" pieces; transfer to bowl with bok choy.
- Heat 1 tablespoon vegetable oil in a fry pan over medium heat. Add garlic and sauté for 30 seconds. Add mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, 3-4 minutes. Season with ½ teaspoon salt and transfer to bowl with bok choy and cellophane noodles.
- Add bean curd, green onions, soy sauce, sesame oil, brown sugar and remaining ½ teaspoon salt; mix well.
- Place 1 tablespoon vegetable mixture in the center of a potsticker wrapper. Pleat to seal (see notes*). Transfer to a baking sheet dusted with flour. Repeat with remaining vegetable mixture and potsticker wrappers (see notes**).
- Heat 1 tablespoon vegetable oil in a large fry pan over medium-high heat. Add half of the potstickers to pan and cook for 3 minutes or until brown on the bottom. Pour ½ cup water over the potstickers and cover with a lid. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 6 minutes. Then remove lid and cook until water evaporates, about 1 minute. Repeat with remaining vegetable potstickers.
**You will have extra filling after making the potstickers, but it's delicious served as a stir-fry.
