Potstickers

Date: Tue, 21 Feb 95 13:26:58 CST
From: cgibas@wraightc3.life.uiuc.edu (Cynthia J. Gibas)

Having found the Long Life Vegi House while I was in CA last week, and
experienced the joys of potstickers made with faux meat (gluten) I made a
low-fat version of these last night. This looks like a phenomenal amount
of work but it only took about 1.5 hours total. Of course, that may seem
like a phenomenal amount of time to some.

GLUTEN

This is hard to make from regular flour, but if you buy the (more expensive)
de-starched wheat gluten, it's practically foolproof.

2.5 c. 'vital wheat gluten' flour
1/4 c. spelt flour or ww flour
2 c. cold water

mix until a dense dough forms, adding more gluten flour if the blob feels
wet. Knead for a few minutes, but don't fold over. If you fold the blob
after most of the water is absorbed, the parts won't stick together, and
the gluten will fall apart when you slice it. Slice the gluten into about
10 chunks, after letting it rest for a few minutes.

Boil for approximately 1 hr. in a large pot, starting with about 10 c. of
broth made of water plus 1/2 c. dry white wine, 1/4 c. soy sauce, nutritional
yeast, garlic, and ginger. The gluten will puff up so leave space at the
top of the pot. Let cool. Properly made gluten will un-puff and become
fairly dense.

On to the potstickers.

FILLING

In a food processor, chop:

5 large carrots
3/4 c. dried shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated
8 scallions, trimmed and cut into 2" pieces
2 t. salt
2 T. rice wine
1 T. cornstarch
1 t. white pepper

put this mixture in a large bowl and add

1.5 c. cabbage, finely shredded or foodprocessed if you lack the patience to
shred

press the liquid out of about half of your batch of gluten, and cut the
chunks into smaller pieces. Put these in the food processor and whirl until
the gluten is similar in texture to cooked ground meat. (This worked
beautifully for me with the batch of gluten I made last night, but results
may vary). Add this to the filling mixture.

SKINS

This is straight from the Betty Crocker LeeAnn Chin chinese cookbook.

3 c. unbleached flour
1.5 c. boiling water

mix to make a soft dough and knead 5 min. This is sticky dough, you will need
to add some extra flour but don't add too much as it needs to be soft.
Basically it's a dough-handling nightmare but once you make a few mistakes
your potstickers will start looking normal and the thick yummy noodle skins
will be well worth the trouble. Divide the dough into 1" diameter balls.
Take each ball, roll it out to about 4" in diameter, put a blob of filling
in the middle, pinch several pleats in the edge on one side, and fold the
other side over. The sticky dough sticks together much better than prefab
skins, so you won't have to worry about the potstickers opening up. Place
finished potstickers on a floured plate (VERY important to flour).

Put a layer of large cabbage leaves in a bamboo steamer and lay potstickers
on top. They will stick to the moist leaves, but not as much as they
would to the steamer. Steam until skins become translucent.

You will probably need 2 batches of skins for the amount of filling. One
today and one tomorrow...

DIPPING SAUCE

1/4 c. soy sauce
1/3 c. rice vinegar
1 scallion chopped fine
1 t. grated fresh ginger
small amount of sugar if desired

mix and let stand for a while, then dip...