In our home, comfort food means noodles and dumplings.  On any given day, I have a freezer full of the premade dumplings and dried noodles from the Asian market.  The other day, I decided to make my own dumplings.  No more frozen pot stickers  for my babies!   

Before my daughter came home from school, I made the filling and set it in the refrigerator for an hour so the flavors could meld together. 

That afternoon, we had a terrific mother daughter experience.  My beauty and I sat at the kitchen table and made dumpling together just as I did with my mother 35 years ago.  She lined up the dumpling wrappers and painted the water on the skins with her tiny fingers carefully wetting the entire perimeter.  I filled and folded the pot stickers.  She dipped the finished product into the cornstarch and laid them out onto a cookie sheet in straight rows.  We were a well-oiled machine. 

As we were doing this, a Chinese culture and language lesson popped in.  She started asking questions like how do you say dumpling in Chinese?  What are the words for table and chair?  We counted the dumplings, all 42 of them, first in English then Chinese (actually we counted them twice in Chinese because she had so much fun learning.) 

That night our family enjoyed the dumplings along with some baby bak choy for dinner.  The discussion turned to another Chinese topic, an article in the New York Times from the day before on paper sons from China.

Here is a recipe for some good mother/child Chinese bonding.

Pot Stickers

• 1 package of round flour dumpling skins
• Water
• Cornstarch in shallow bowl or plate

For filling:

• 1 lb ground pork or dark meat chicken
• ½ pound shrimp cut into ¼ inch pieces (about 10 large shrimp)
• 3 leaves of Napa cabbage finely dices (1/4 inch pieces)
• 6 rehydrated diced shitake mushrooms
• 10-15 chopped cilantro leaves  (I used a handful)
• 3 scallion stalks finely chopped
• 3 cloves of minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon shingtao wine
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda

Instructions:

1.  Mix all filling ingredients together.
2. Fill a small cup with water
3. Fill a small bowl with a little corn starch
4. Take a dumpling wrapper and wet the perimeter with water
5. Fill with a teaspoon of filling
6. Fold dumpling in half at center
7. Make 2 pleats on either sides of the center and seal
8. Dab the bottom of dumpling in the cornstarch and set aside for cooking.
9. Repeat until done.
10. Heat a frying pan on high heat
11. Once hot, add some cooking oil to coat the bottom of the pan
12. Place pot stickers inside and let the bottoms brown, about 2-3 minutes but keep checking as they may burn.
13. Once the bottoms have browned, cover the pan with a tight fitting lid and turn heat down to low. 
14. Pour a ¼ cup of water into the pan and let the dumplings simmer.
15. Once the water has evaporated serve and enjoy.

 *Filling can be made a few hours ahead

** A good butcher will gladly ground dark meat chicken for you.