Pork and Chive Pot Stickers with Dandelion Greens

When I was growing up, pot stickers were an exotic thing to me. The "Chinese" food we ate in our house was almost entirely of the Cantonese variety. There were some small exceptions, like the jars of smokey, wok-stirred chili oil that my aunt from Shanghai would make. Pot stickers - a northern Chinese or Taiwanese specialty called jiaoze, were something we only had on occasion and never at home.

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Chinese hands, rolling out dough. 

There were infrequent trips to the Taiwanese dumpling place outside of Cantonese Chinatown where we lived. Bottles of vinegar and dark soy sauce sat on the tables. My mouth always started watering as I got ready to dunk the puffy, crispy dumplings into the vinegar and soy dipping sauce. So good.

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Thin, but not as thin as a wonton skin.

When my mom comes to visit a few times a year now, we make wontons, the Cantonese cousin to the pot sticker. We put together massive quantities that require every able-bodied person in the house to help. We eat many then freeze as many to consume slowly until the next time “Po Po” (grandmother) comes to visit.

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Half a tablespoon of filling per dumpling is plenty.

Our most recent group cooking effort included pork wontons seasoned with coriander, cumin and turmeric. We get adventurous and step outside of the usual taste parameters around here when it comes to meat wrapped in thin dough skins. These got eaten before my brother suggested we try serving them in a cream sauce.

While wontons are light and ethereal, cloud puffs that float to the top of a clear, clean-tasting broth, potstickers are made of thicker, egg-free dough. The bottoms brown to a crisp before water is added, creating billows of steam that cause the tops to puff and the meat filling to cook through. The liquid cooks off, reinforcing the bottom crust.

Good pot stickers are moist, crispy and chewy. Just a few will fill you up. They are satisfyingly of the earth while wontons are of the sky, for the dreamers among us. In some ways, potstickers are the complete opposite of wontons. The yin to the wonton’s yang.  

Start from the middle, make one pleat then work to the right, adding two more pleats. Cute, huh?

Lately, I’ve been craving potstickers. And, I was thinking about how my mom would use garlic chives that we kids would forage from along the railroad tracks behind our house in northeast L.A. I had no idea what these greens were called as I yanked them from the sandy soil. To me, they were stinky and unruly looking weeds.

Our mom cooked with them unapologetically. Back then, we didn’t care that there was brake dust, creosote vapors, or god knows what else on our greens. They grew freely and were, well. Free!

I’ve included a liberal amount of regular chives here, since they are growing in our garden. They aren’t anywhere near as pungent as the flat-leaved garlic chive variety of my childhood. So, I've added some actual garlic to the mix. 

I've also included some of the slightly bitter dandelion greens we "weeded" out from under our plum tree this morning. Nothing wrong with some free greens, right? Especially if they are nutritious and tasty.

The filling is thus slightly onion-y and definitely garlicky, with a bitter edge to round out the pork's richness. Pot stickers indubitably of  the earth. 

Also included are directions for making the dumpling skins. I urge you to make them instead of buying them. Homemade definitely tastes better here and this soft, pliable dough is easy - and even dreamy, I'd dare say - to work with. 

Hope you enjoy these earthly dumplings as much as I did.

Sorry dreamers, there will be a recipe just for you soon!

Pork and Chive Pot Stickers with Dandelion Greens

Makes 40 to 50 pot stickers – enough for a party or to freeze

Ingredients

Filling

7 cups finely chopped napa cabbage
1 cup finely chopped dandelion greens
½ cup finely chopped chives
1 pound ground pork (a little fat helps make the dumpling juicier)
4 tablespoons finely chopped fresh ginger
3 tablespoons finely chopped garlic
3 tablespoons soy sauce
4 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
1 ½ tablespoons sea salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten

Dough
2 cups boiling water
4 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons oil for pan frying (sunflower, grapeseed both work)

Instructions

For the filling:
Combine the cabbage, dandelion greens and 1 ½ teaspoons of the salt in a bowl and set aside for 30 minutes. Place the cabbage and greens in a kitchen towel, gathering it together. Wring as much water as possible out. This will help the filling come together better.

In another large bowl, combine cabbage, dandelion greens, pork, chive, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, remaining salt and egg. Mix gently but well.

For the dough:
In a large stainless-steel bowl, stir together the flour and salt. Add the boiling water slowly and in small increments, stirring in between additions until a ball is formed and the dough is no longer too hot to handle. More or less water may be needed, depending on the day’s humidity. Knead dough on a floured work surface for at least 15 minutes. You may also use a stand mixer with a dough hook attachment for 7 minutes instead. Form dough into a ball and place it in the same bowl covering it with a damp towel. Allow to rest for 1 hour.

To make the wrappers, add a generous coating of flour to the work surface. Divide dough in half. Shape one half into a log (I roll it between my hands forming a “snake”) until it is about 1 inch in diameter. Cut into ½-inch pieces. Stand each piece on its cut end and press down with the palm of your hand. Roll into circles 3 inches in diameter and 1/16th of an inch thick.

Fill the wrappers:
Place about ½ a teaspoon of filling in the center of the wrapper. Fold in half to form a half-moon. Seal the top center of each dumpling by pressing between your fingers. Starting there, make 3 pleats going from the middle toward the right. Repeat, going toward the bottom left. Press your dumpling gently to flatten the bottom.

To cook:
Heat a large skillet over high heat. Add the oil and swirl to coat. When oil is hot, add the pot stickers with their flattened bottoms down. It’s helpful to place them in rows going in one direction. These dumplings enjoy snugging together, so let them. Cook undisturbed on medium-high for five to six minutes. Then, add about ½ cup of water and immediately covered (or you will be getting a steam facial!). In another minute, lift the cover to check water level. You want to make sure about 1/8 of an inch of water remains. If not, add more water. All pot stickers to steam until water has evaporated, up to 10 minutes. If your water evaporates before the pot stickers are done, add water in ¼ cup increments. If the opposite occurs and the pot stickers seem done but liquid remains, drain the liquid and put the pan back on the heat to evaporate any remaining liquid.

Allow pot stickers to recrisp on the bottom, another 2 to 3 minutes. Cook the pot stickers as above in batches.

You may serve the pot stickers with a dipping sauce made by mixing together equal parts soy sauce and rice wine vinegar and a spot of toasted sesame oil. Sometimes I also like to mix in a bit of honey or sugar.

And there you have it: Jiaoze!

Rice Porridge (Jook/Congee) with Sauteed Chard

When I was growing up in LA’s Chinatown, it was our family’s ritual to head over to the dim sum parlor on Broadway every Sunday morning. The restaurant was always crowded with families waiting by the front and loudly talking over one another. My mother always seemed to know one of the wait staff who would sneak us in before it was actually our turn on the waiting list.

Once inside, a pot of Bo Lai tea would be placed on our table. It was a bountiful scene. There were shrimp dumplings, tender egg tarts and stewed chicken feet, among many other things that we wanted to stuff right into our mouths. Food seemed to magically appear as one by one the dim sum ladies pushed their full carts up to our table. They would loudly announce their goods and if necessary, cajole us if we turned them down.

But, what I often wanted more than the rich dumplings and pork-stuffed rice noodles was a large bowl of rice porridge called jook (or congee). At its plainest, it is made of nothing more than rice, water and perhaps a bit of salt and pepper. It is a food that was eaten during war and famine. A food that has its origins in hardship and want.  

Inevitably, I would ask one of the ladies for some jook (the restaurant version being enriched with chicken stock and bits of meat, sometimes pork and “thousand-year-old” eggs). This would result in my mother declaring once again how she couldn’t understand why I wanted to eat that when there were so many other good things to eat: We ate it when we were running from the Japanese! When we were starving and there was nothing else! We would use one cup of rice and ten cups of water to make a pot of jook to feed everyone!

Once you make this recipe, you might start to understand my love of this simple dish and how it was able to sustain so many hungry people who had nothing but a small bit of white rice to share between them. It is soothing, settles the belly and warms you. Its flavor is subtle and clean.

Glorious Chard, Fresh and Nutritious...

Here, I have added chard that was sautéed separately in plenty of oil infused with garlic and a piece of ginger. The silkiness of the greens is perfect with the porridge and the whole thing is even better when finished with a drizzle of scallion oil, sesame oil and a shower of chopped green onions. When the oils hit the hot porridge, the smell is just intoxicating. 

If you want, you can make variations of this. The easiest one is to simply use chicken stock instead of water to enrich it. You can substitute the greens with shredded chicken, pork, beef or yes, even a Thousand-Year-Old egg (a duck egg preserved in lime, causing the egg white to turn brown and the yolk to transform into a gooey green in the process). Japanese and Korean versions often add a raw egg that gets stirred in and cooked by the heat of the porridge.

Many of my favorite things to eat are simple, plain and uncomplicated. This is at the top of my list.

Rice Porridge(Jook/Congee) with Spring Greens

Ingredients

1 cup white short grain rice
10 cups water
2 teaspoons salt
1 or 2 pinches of ground white pepper
1 bunch swiss chard, stems removed (save for another use), rinsed, and leaves chopped into ribbons
1 clove garlic, smashed
1 slice fresh ginger, smashed
2 Tablespoons sunflower oil

For garnish:

Chopped scallions, greens and whites
Dark toasted sesame oil
Black sesame seeds

Green Scallion Oil 

Instructions

For greens

1. Heat pan on medium-high. When pan is hot, add oil, garlic and then ginger. Remove garlic and ginger after 2-3 minutes.

2. Add greens and stir, coating greens with oil and sauté. If your greens become too dry, add a tablespoon or two of liquid, stirring. Cook until nicely wilted, about 5 minutes. Set greens aside.

Jook/Congee

1. Give rice a good rinse to remove any talc. Place in large heavy-bottom pot.

2. Add water, salt.

3. Turn heat to medium high and bring to a boil.

4. Once it boils, turn it down to low.

5. While porridge is simmering, make greens (see above).

6. Simmer partially covered for an hour, or until mixture resembles a heavy cream.

7. Place a small pile of greens in bowl. Ladle porridge in around the greens. Garnish with chopped scallions, sesame seeds. Drizzle sesame oil generously. Drizzle scallion oil on generously as well.

8. Eat, share. Eat some more.

Coin Purse Eggs...Hello Spring!

Winters here in Western Washington can sure feel long. By the end of February, the consistently dark and wet days begin to feel like they will never end. You wake up with your house solidly encased in darkness, turn all the lights on (for mental health reasons) and before you know it, your afternoon goes from murky dampness to pure blackness once again. And it’s not even anywhere near dinner time yet.

Lately, our still drizzly days have been punctuated here and there by an actual sunny day. That’s when you’ll find us running outside dressed in tee shirts and shorts. Who cares if it’s still a bit cold out? Who even notices that we are blinding one another with the full moon glow of our winter skin?

We tilt our faces up to the sky, grateful for the light. We greet our friends, whom we haven’t seen since we traded cookies and jars of hot fudge in December, with hugs and say things like, “You made it through the dark months!”

Hello Spring. You are here!

For me, Spring is about fresh eggs. Not those bland ones from the supermarket that we dye for Easter. I’m talking about rich, Omega-laden yolks like the ones local pastured hens have been busy laying now that there is more light each day (Did you know, chickens need about 14 hours of daylight to be able to lay consistently?).

Eggs make me think of my little Chinese mom who raised six hungry kids by herself with a simple dish of steamed white rice and coin purse eggs. We ate a lot of this stuff. It was filling and cheap but still felt special. After all, each “coin purse” contained the promise of wealth and prosperity.

Fresh Eggs From My Brother's Hens

Before you start on the eggs, make sure you already have a pot of cooked rice done. Long-grain is good. So is medium-grain brown. Today we made haiga, a Japanese type which is almost white but not quite brown rice. The bran has been removed, but the germ still remains. It's an in-between thing. Anyway...

It’s time to start your eggs.  

You’ll be cooking one egg at a time, but the whole process goes pretty quickly. You'll be eating very, very soon. I promise.  

Heat two tablespoons or so of oil of your choice (I like sunflower or peanut) in the bottom of curved cooking vessel – like a wok, for instance. Make sure it’s good and hot. This is important!

Take one fresh egg (now’s definitely the time to splurge on organic, farm fresh) and crack it into your little pool of heated oil. Alternatively, you can place your egg in a bowl or cup and then slide it in. But we live on the edge around here. Crack it right in, I say!

Once it goes it, it will sizzle and pop in a most satisfying way. The white should puff up and start to set around the edges. I like to tip the pan to one side to encourage the white to stretch a bit toward one side. This will make it easier to fold.

At this point, swirling the oil a bit around the whole egg is good too. The bottom will start to become crispy and develop brown spots. The yolk will still be wiggly with some uncooked white immediately around it.

It’s been about a minute-and-a-half now. Take your spatula and carefully work it under one side of the egg.

Gently fold the white over the yolk so that it comes together with the opposite edge of white. Introduce them. Let the edges be friends.

This next part might get a little tricky, especially if you are cooking on a flat surface. You might need to tilt the pan a bit and try to nestle the egg into the curved inner part. You will need to hold your spatula for a few moments keep the egg used to its new position. It will quickly set.

When you let go, you’ll see that you’ve made a chubby purse-shaped package with a delicious yolky “coin” inside. So cute. It wiggles when you touch it.   

The proper way to eat it?

Scoop some rice into a bowl. Gently lay your egg on top. Add a splash of soy sauce and a sprinkling of green onions. Shower it with some sesame seeds and it's practically fancy. Poke the soft yolk and let it run down into the hot rice. Mix this rich, sunshine-y concoction up with your chopsticks then savor each bite.

Here’s to sunny days ahead! Enjoy!

Note: If you have some greens lying around in your veggie bin (Radish greens are great – we don’t like to waste anything around here), go ahead and sauté them with a little garlic and oil. Add that to your bowl and you will have a beyond satisfying meal.