Small plate · Northern China
Potstickers
Pork and cabbage dumplings browned on the bottom and steamed on top.
About the dish
Potstickers, guotie in Mandarin, are a northern Chinese pan-fried dumpling; the name means pot stick. They share their wheat wrappers and fillings with boiled jiaozi, and Japanese gyoza descend from them.
A classic filling is ground pork with napa cabbage, ginger, scallion, soy sauce and sesame oil. The cabbage is salted, left to stand and squeezed hard first, so it gives up its water before it can make the filling soggy.
The cooking has three steps. The dumplings are set in a hot oiled pan until the bottoms brown, a splash of water goes in and the lid goes on so steam cooks the tops and the filling, then the lid comes off and the water boils away so the bottoms crisp again in the oil. Some cooks add a little flour or starch to the water, which leaves a lacy, crisp skirt joining the dumplings. They are dipped in black vinegar, often with soy sauce and chili oil, whose sourness cuts the richness of the pork.
Written from general cooking knowledge, as background on a dish from the game’s recipe book. It is not a tested recipe.
The flavors it leans on
Potstickers in Night Kitchen
In the game, Potstickers is a small plate in the recipe book. A plate is named Potstickers when it holds these cards and is cooked with exactly this technique, with at most one extra ingredient.
Ingredients
- Pork shoulder
- Cabbage
- Flour
Technique
- Sear
How those cards taste
Cooked from just these cards for an average ticket, before tonight’s mood and quirks, it would please Theo (2 stars) most.
“Pork dumplings with crisp bottoms. Cabbage inside. You can eat ten at a red light.”
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