Potstickers with Shrimp and Scallops

Menu: Potstickers with Shrimp and Scallops; White Rice; Broccoli; Mango; Strawberries

Lessons learned:

1. This is one of the few recipes for which it's not worth it to buy the big sea scallops.
2. Don't just make rice; make rice salad!

My parents and I lived in China when I was a toddler, and my mom cooked many Chinese dishes on a regular basis when I was growing up.  She would make potstickers from almost-scratch, buying the wrappers from an Asian market and making her own filling, usually with pork.  She taught me how to fold them her way and pan-fry them, and I've made them ever since.  I LOVE potstickers.  I can't control myself around that fried dough.

At American restaurants, potstickers are an appetizer and you usually get between 4 and 8.  My parents say that when they would eat big dinners with Chinese hosts, potstickers would come after the meal.  Bowls and bowls of them.  That's more my style; splitting 4 delicious fried dumplings with someone else just seems crazy to me.  And it's nice to know exactly what's in the filling when you make them yourself.  I've made mine with chicken and mango, pork and pumpkin, and this seafood filling.  Completely vegetarian ones are on my list next.

This is my second time making seafood potstickers, and they turned out very well!  My in-laws, who got in this morning, said they were delicious.  However, I served them with pretty uninteresting sides, and the rice seemed kind of redundant.  Next time, I'll do a rice salad with more complex flavors.

Since my in-laws were here to help with distracting the kids and dinner prep, we all got to sit down together (at the BIG table!).  My father-in-law opened a nice Chianti, which I will drink with pretty much anything.  My kids spent most of their time asking for more mango (Ben: "o pees? kay") and strawberries, but Ben did eat some of his potsticker and rice, and Sophie ate her broccoli.  I feel like she's barely eating anything these days, but I guess if she eats broccoli I should just calm down.

You can totally make your own potstickers, too!  Get the square Na Soya wonton wrappers from most any grocery store around here, or the circles from an Asian market.  And you can fill them with anything you want.  Just make sure you have an ingredient to bind the filling together, such as an egg.  I got tonight's recipe from The Potsticker Chronicles by Stuart Chang Berman (a book with mostly non-potsticker recipes), and adapted it as you see it below.

Potstickers with Shrimp and Scallops

1 package of 40-50 potsticker wrappers
3/4 pound small or medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
3/4 pound scallops (I shelled out for sea scallops tonight, but I'm pretty sure I shouldn't have)
1 tablespoon minced ginger
1 tablespoon Hennessy
2-3 tablespoons of chives, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon white pepper
1 egg white (optional)
1-2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/4 cup oil, plus more as needed
Soy sauce
Rice vinegar

If you forgot to take your potsticker wrappers out of the freezer in time for them to thaw completely, take them out of the plastic and stick them in the microwave for 30 seconds.  They'll be fine.  :)

Next, start making the filling in one of two ways.  First, you can mince all your seafood by hand, in which case you will need the egg white.  Or you can do what I did, which is to put all my seafood in the small bowl of my food processor and pulse it until there weren't any huge pieces left.  Since food processors chop things unevenly, this meant that some of the seafood had basically turned to paste (very appetizing, I know).  I figured that meant I didn't need to bother with the egg, and I was right.  But the filling probably would have turned out more delicate if I had minced by hand and made it bind with egg.  Too late now, and they were delicious anyway!

At any rate, once your seafood is no longer in big pieces, put it in a mixing bowl and stir in the other ingredients.  Take the mixture, a small spoon, your wrappers, and a little bowl of water to a work station, along with a baking sheet covered in parchment paper and dusted lightly with flour.

Now you can start filling!  No matter what wrapper you're using, you want just a scant tablespoon of filling in each one.  Overfilling makes folding much more difficult than it needs to be.  If you use Na Soya wrappers, there are instructions on the package for making a wonton shape, which is fine.  Here is what I do with the round ones:

Like my mom says, it really doesn't matter, especially if you're not Chinese.  But I do what she does, which is to fold the wrapper in half around the filling, and then make 4-5 small folds in the side facing me, keeping my fingers wet the whole time so the dough stays together once you've folded it.

You can make these ahead of time, too, but I never end up doing it.  When you're ready to cook them, put some oil in a pan -- enough to cover the bottom -- over medium-high heat.  Arrange the potstickers in the pan comfortably; you may need to do two or even three batches, depending on the size of your pan.  When the bottoms of the potstickers are brown, dump in about 1/4 cup of water and quickly cover the pan.  This step is what cooks the filling.  Give it about 5 minutes, then uncover the pan and check one of the potstickers to make sure it's done.  If the outside looks good to you, take the potstickers out; if the water and steam have made the skins too soggy, let them fry a little longer after the water has boiled off.

Serve the potstickers with dipping sauce made of 1 part soy sauce to 1 part rice vinegar.

Of course, you can definitely boil the dumplings, too -- it's more authentic, and also healthier.  But for me, that's what makes the difference between being worth the time... and not.

This amount was plenty for four adults and two kids.