The filled dumplings called "jiaozi" in China and "gyozu" in Japan are usually boiled or steamed. My favorite jiaozi go by the name "kuo tieh" or "guotie" (the Pinyang transliteration), which translates as "pot stickers". In New England they're called Peking ravioli, the name under which they were introduced to the local Chinese restaurant scene by Joyce Chen at her Cambridge restaurant in 1958. They almost certainly originated as a happy mistake when an inattentive cook preparing boiled jiaozi let the water boil off and the dumplings sizzled and browned on the bottom. The combined pan-frying and steaming technique insures they come out crunchy and golden brown on the bottom, tender and chewy on the top.
Wrapper dough
1 cup all-purpose flour
6 TBS cold water
Filling
4-6 dried black mushrooms (such as shiitake)
1/2 pound ground pork
1/3 cup bamboo shoots
1 scallion
1 TBS fresh ginger
1 TBS shao hsing rice wine (or dry fino Sherry)
1 TBS light soy sauce
2 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp sugar
Cooking
1/4 cup (or less) neutral vegetable oil (I prefer peanut oil)
3/4 cup water
1. Mix the wrapper dough ingredients and knead until the dough forms up. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes. The dough should be soft and stretchy but not sticky.
2. Prepare the filling. Soften the mushrooms by soaking them in boiling water for 10 minutes or so. Squeeze out excess water. Finely chop the mushrooms, bamboo shoots, scallions, and ginger. Combine all of the filling ingredients and mix them together thoroughly.
3. Make the jiaozi. Divide the dough and filling into 20 equal portions. To form each dumpling, roll out a dough piece into a thin circle 3 to 3-1/2 inches in diameter. Place a portion of filling in the center, then fold the sides of the wrapper up over the filling and press to seal. You will have an oblong dumpling with a flattish bottom and a crescent ribbon of dough sealing it in. If you wish, you can fold 5-6 pleats in the rim, to give you something resembling the float of a Portuguese Man-o-war jellyfish.
4. Cook the dumplings in a flat-bottomed skillet or saute pan with a lid. Pour the oil in the pan, coating the whole bottom, then place the pan on moderately high heat. When the oil is hot but not smoking, place the dumplings in the pan bottom side down. Cook about two minutes until they are starting to brown on the bottom. Shake the pan occasionally to make sure the dumplings aren't sticking.
5. Pour the water around the dumplings and quickly put the lid on (so that you don't get spattered). Turn the heat down and allow the dumplings to steam/boil about five minutes.
6. After 10-12 minutes total cooking time, remove the lid, turn the heat to high. Allow the remaining water to boil off. Let the dumplings sizzle (again, make sure they're not sticking) and brown on the bottom. Remove the pan from the heat, slide out the dumplings, and serve.
Notes
These can be served accompanied by light soy sauce, vinegar, and hot chile oil--each diner can mix their own dipping sauce. Or you can mix a dipping sauce from light soy sauce, vinegar, rice wine, sugar, and minced scallion and ginger.
You can use commercially prepared wonton (if you have the square ones, trim the corners to make an octagon) or gyoza wrappers, but to my taste the dough in these wrappers is too stiff (like pasta dough) and the results are inferior to the dough made from scratch. Rolling out the dough is a bit tedious, but IMO the results are worth it. If the dough seems too stiff when you're kneading it, wet your hands to work in a bit more moisture. Or knead in more flour if it seems too sticky. Keep some flour on hand to keep the wrappers from sticking to the work surface or the rolling pin as you roll them out.
Cornstarch is the gluten-free starch readily available in the USA. Use arrowroot or whatever starch powder is available in your area.
How much oil you need to use depends on the volume and shape of your cooking pan. The objective here is to thinly coat the pan bottom so that the dumplings don't stick and so that they brown properly. Too much oil will result in greasy pot stickers.
Be careful during the initial pan-frying not to have the oil too hot (so that the dumplings burn on the bottom) or too cool (so that they don't fry).
Put the lid on fast when you add the water, or you'll have an oily mess to clean up on the stove. You want the lid to be on loosely so that it holds in the steam, but does let it escape. The idea here is to let the dumplings boil on the bottom and steam on top. Then you finish the dish by letting the water boil off and the oil browns and crisps the dumpling bottoms.
The name "pot stickers" is not given without reason. If the pan's well coated and the oil is hot enough when you drop the dumplings in, they shouldn't stick. If the dumplings do stick to the pan, free them by scraping carefully with a spatula. Be careful not to tear the wrapper and leave the dumpling bottom stuck to the pan.
Unfortunately, these don't reheat very well. Microwaving to reheat tends to make the wrapper rubbery.
The raw dumplings freeze well. Be careful that they don't stick to each other if you freeze them. Defrost them thoroughly before you pan-fry them. They can of course also be boiled or steamed.
-Paul W.
I'll gladly e-mail any advice I can on making the best pot-stickers, though.