Potsticker (锅贴 in Chinese) is a variant of Chinese dumpling that is crispy on the bottom and juicy inside. This post will show you every detail about how to make wrappers and filling from scratch and put them together. Although a little bit time-consuming,  you will find the whole process is extremely rewarding, homemade potstickers taste so much better than frozen ones you bought from stores, and most importantly, you know what you’re putting in them.

Before the invention of non-stick pans, it was a quite tricky job to cook potstickers even for the most competent Chinese housewives. The dumplings could stick to the pan easily and impossible to remove them without damaging the wrappers. You had to know your pan and stove very well and  know how to judge the temperature accurately to avoid such mess. Fortunately, we get non-stick pan nowadays, the only challenge is how to make wrappers and filling then assemble them. The making of potstickers isn’t so formidable as it looks, once you start to try, you will find there is actually lots of fun. Enjoy!

Ingredients (Makes about 48)

Wrappers：

300 g (2 cups) plain flour 

220 g  hot water (about 80℃ or 176℉ )

Filling：

1) 450 g pork mince

2) 3 stalks of spring onion, finely chopped

3) 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves

4) 1 tablespoon finely chopped ginger

5) 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce

6) 1 tablespoon soy sauce

7) 1 g ground white pepper

8) 1 teaspoon sesame oil

Batter:

2 tablespoons plain flour

250 g water

Stir flour into water to form a consistent mixture.

For frying:

1 tablespoon olive oil

Preparing the filling

Preparing dough

Why making the wrappers ourselves as we can buy them easily from stores? Good question! The answer is that the manufacturers of wrappers did everything to make their wrappers not stick to each other. But you actually need the wrappers to be sticky, otherwise the assembled potstickers could fall apart even before you cooking them. Furthermore, by making wrappers yourself, you get full control of the ingredients and texture of wrappers, the texture of wrappers is as important as taste of filling. 

Trust me, it is not as difficult as it looks. Let’s start our adventure.

Sift the flour into a large bowl. Gradually add hot water (about 80℃ or 176℉ ) into the bowl, stir with chopsticks or wooden spoon to form a coarse dough. The hot water will combine with starch inside flour quickly, that means that some water is “locked” by starch, so the dough won’t be as sticky as you use same amount cold water (actually, if you use same amount of cold water the dough is not workable at all). Because there is more water inside  than it looks, the texture of wrappers made by this dough is much more silky than any off-the-shelf ones. 

Tips: Because we will cook the potstickers by frying, the wrapper will lose some moisture, that is why we use this trick to put more water into dough. Otherwise, the wrapper will become pretty dry after cooking.

Kneading

Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knead vigorously for 10 minutes or until smooth and elastic. If you feel the dough is too sticky to work with, you can add a little bit more flour. Just remember don’t add too much once. 

Cover with plastic wrap and rest for 30 minutes.

Tips: kneading is absolutely necessary to achieve better texture of wrapper. However after kneading, the dough become too elastic, so we have to let it rest for some time, dough will become pliable again. 

Making wrappers

1. Divide the dough into 4 portions. Roll each portion into cylindrical bar with a diameter around 2.5 cm (1 inch). The size doesn’t have to be very accurate, since we will cut it into pieces.

2. Using a knife, cut the each dough bar into 12 pieces. After each cut, turn the bar 90 degree to keep its shape. (Otherwise it  will become flat after 3 or 4 cuts).

3. Flatten the pieces with your palm.

4. Working with one piece at a time, use a rolling pin to roll out it to round and thin wrapper, with a diameter about 10cm (4 inch). Try to make the wrapper a little bit thicker in the centre.

Making potstickers

1. Put filling on the wrapper with a small spoon (or any tool you like), then shape the filling  (to an elongated shape) with the spoon. 

2. Bring the sides of wrapper up to meet at the top, then press together. Crimp the edges together to seal well. Remember to keep both ends open.

3. Done.  With the openings of both ends, the filling will exchange moisture and flavor with batter.

4. Place the finished potstickers on a lightly floured surface, now they are ready for cooking.

Frying potstickers

1. Preheat the pan for seconds, drizzle into a tablespoon of olive oil. Then put the postickers into the pan, you need push them together, Don’t worry about that they will stick to each other. When cooked, you can separate them easily. 

2. Turn the stove to  high heat. When hear sound of sizzling, pour the batter into the pan along its side (don’t pour the batter on the top of potstickers!) until  the lower half of  potstickers are immersed. 

3. Reduce the heat to low. Cover the frypan with lid, or just with foil wrap, and cook for about 10 minutes or until the potstickers are translucent and most of the liquid has evaporated. 

4. Maker sure there is no any running liquid in the pan (if there is, heat it  to reduce the liquid), Sprinkle over some finely chopped spring onion to decoration. 

Shake the frypan and gently transfer the potstickers to a plate to serve.

Variations

Replace the port mince with beef or lamb mince.