Pot stickers

We had our friends, Lauren and Hendricks, over for dinner. I've probably said this before: I don't cook Chinese for our friends. People -- I will not say Americans specifically -- have pre-conceived notions on what Chinese food is. And when you decide to put yourself out there and cook it and they are expecting something else, well... I prefer to not put myself in that situation.

But L+H are dear friends and they like all sorts of food and we decided that they were ready.

So I set out the menu: pot stickers. Then ribs as starters. For dinner: beef with tofu. Beef with scallions. Chicken with eggplant. And dau miu, sauteed with garlic.

I don't have any pictures of any of that, except these pot stickers. And about dinner -- I think it went well. They said they liked it. And we had leftovers.

I've made these pot stickers so many times over the last decade but it had been a while, and I decided to update them a bit as well as make them fresh.

As usual, I picked up the cast of characters: Thin pork chops. Tiny shrimp. Napa cabbage. Round flour dumpling skins.

Normally, I cut it all up and put it all into the food processor. Let it go and then fill.

This time, I didn't. I cut up the pork into small cubes and then pulsed it so that they were not mushy. I checked the shrimp for shells before pulsing that in the same way. The cabbage I pureed to hell.

Then I mixed by hand, added salt.

I filled a sheet pan and when they were here, I boiled them to the second round and then sauteed them in a hot pan. Damn, they turned out so well. And juicy! The best batch I've ever made!

Well, until I had to make them again two days later to use the rest of the filling.

One pound pork + one pound shrimp + 2 1/2 pounds cabbage = 2 packages dumpling skins or about 80 dumplings, I think. Next time, I will try for 1/2 pound of meat each for two people.