My friend Ollie makes reeeeally good potstickers. Really good. He’s finally given me the recipe, more or less. So here goes. As a prelim, here is a tutorial, with pictures, on the fine art of potsticker making.

Ollie says this recipe is close for the dough. 2 parts flour to one part water. It says: “In a bowl, mix the flour and 1 cup boiling water until a soft dough forms. Knead the dough on a lightly flour surface about 5 minutes, or until smooth.

Roll 1 slice of dough into a 3-inch circle and place 1 tablespoon pork mixture in the center of the circle. Lift up the edges of the circle and pinch 5 pleats up to create a pouch to encase the mixture. Pinch the top together. Repeat with the remaining slices of dough and filling.”

Ingredients: ground pork, shrimp, egg, bok choi, water chestnuts, shittake mushrooms
This is close to the recipe Ollie uses, but he doesn’t use carrots.

Ollie’s directions:
i usually use ~ 1 lb of pork, and about twice as much volume in veggies, and maybe 1/2 or 1/4 lb shrimp. grind pork and shrimp and egg in food processor. you might need to do 1/2 at a time for both meat and veggies, depending on size of processor. the hardcore way is to use your cleaver to grind everything. chop chop! chop lots! be careful not to grind to much otherwise your pork and shrimp and veggies turn into pate.

i cook in sesame oil for flavor. fry the potstickers in a pan until the bottoms are browned. pour in water and cover to steam them. jenn says to pour in 2oz at a time and let it boil off, do it several times. that way it might not break apart with the skins stuck to the pan.

oh yeah, when you roll out the dough there are two methods.
method 1: get a little ball of the right size (right size depends on whether you like the dough thick or thin), roll it into a circle
method 2: roll the dough flat, then cut out circles with a cup.
i use method 2, and i use those rolling pin rubber bands now… great stuff.
if you have a pasta maker you can roll the dough flat in that.

Serve with dipping sauce; this is a good one, but add chili oil.