The resident spawn wanted to order some pot stickers/dumplings for dinner tonight and I decided we needed to make them on our own. I chose wisely.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground pork (may the pork be with you, always…)
• 1 cup carrots, finely minced
• 3 tbl fresh ginger, finely minced
• 3 or 4 basil leaves, finely minced
• 6 scallions, trimmed with white/green parts separated & finely minced
• 4 cloves of garlic, wait for it… Finely minced!
• 2 eggs, beaten and separated (that sounds so wrong)
• Wonton wrappers (or make your own if you’re crazy)
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tbl of soy sauce
• 1/4 cup rice vinegar
• Oil to cook in (I like peanut oil for this)
• Some water

1. Take all that minced crap and mix it in with the pork and one of the beaten eggs and the 2 tablespoons of soy sauce. This is your filling.
2. Take a wrapper, brush on the egg for stickiness action, put in some filling in it (not too much, maybe like a large marble’s worth, you’ll figure it out) and then gather up the corners and make a little pinched together pouch like thing with a flat bottom, like in the picture above.
3. I like to make them all up and put them on a nonstick sheet pan. If you don’t want to cook them all, you could freeze them, but then we’d know that you are un-American. Just cook them all, they’ll get eaten.
4. Okay, get out a big nonstick skillet with a lid. Preheat it on medium-high heat, then put in a couple tablespoons of oil. Once that’s heated, put a layer of dumplings in and rock the pan around to get them all hit with the oil. Cook for about 2 minutes then put in about 1/4 cup of water for each dozen dumplings, pop the lid on, and turn the heat down to medium.
5. We’re steaming the dumplings now (did you know you can do this with eggs to make them perfectly over-easy? I digress…) Let them steam for about 3 minutes, then remove the lid and turn the heat back up.
6. Cook for another couple minutes until the water cooks off and remove the dumplings. Wipe out the pan between batches to deglaze it.
7. For a dipping sauce, take the remaining soy sauce and mix it with the rice vinegar and the minced green parts from the scallions.

Why are you still reading this? Why aren’t you eating?