#CueTips: How to Cook Perfect Potstickers at Home

By: Julian Weisner, Culinary Science Team at Hestan Cue

I love Pot Stickers, but I rarely make them from scratch. When I do take the time, I make as many as I can at once, and store them in the freezer to reheat later with the Hestan Cue for quick and easy weeknight meals.

I started developing a technique for cooking perfect potstickers in the Cue over a year ago. At that time I had never made potstickers in a stainless steel skillet, only a non-stick, and I had no idea whether or not I would be able to make this work. I was worried I would not be able to remove them from the pan intact. I didn't let that stop me though, so I started experimenting and put the Cue to the test.

Julian's Potsticker Experiment

I first experimented searing them at 425˚F like we do most of our proteins and I found that it generated color too fast. By the time I had generated enough color, added water, steamed them, and removed them, there was almost no crust left on the bottom, and with no crust there was no wonderful chewy texture. :-(

Dropping my sear temp to 400˚F gave me more time to dehydrate and crisp the bottom of the wrapper while I build color. I also increased the amount of oil I was using from 2 tablespoons to 3 to bring the sear higher up the walls of the dumplings. Even with all of this I usually give the bottom of one of the dumplings a peak before I add the water, I may add another minute here or there just to be sure I have enough crust built up :-)

I also tested to see how many dumplings you can add, is there a max or minimum…?

From what I have found, the minimum is one, and the maximum is however many can fit along the bottom of the pan and have good contact. I will usually fill the pan with anywhere from 6 to 20 dumplings, first moving around the edge of the pan, and then spiraling into the center. I like it when they kind of stick together so I will often over load my pan... but If you don’t like that, ensure there is a little bit of gap between each dumpling so when they steam, they don’t stick together.

The recipe I use to make the filling actually comes from my best friend from home. Her family owns the local Chinese restaurant and I was lucky enough that in high school they opened up their home, and taught me how to make the food they eat. Every year around New Year's her whole family gets together and has a dumpling party, they make as many as they can, and fill the freezer for the whole year. Like many families the “recipe” is less of a defined set of instructions and more of a general set of guidelines and techniques.

If you're looking for something new to cook this weekend, here's the full recipe for cooking these dumplings from scratch. If you're using frozen dumplings that are pre-made, skip ahead to the cooking instructions.

This recipe was made for the Hestan Cue Smart Pan + Induction Cooktop, but if you don't have one, you can still cook the recipe! Just adjust the knob on your stovetop based on the precise temperatures used for the Cue cooktop.

Julian’s Perfect Potsticker Recipe

Ingredients

**You may notice the lack of sesame oil, a very common ingredient. I actually have a sesame allergy, but you probably don’t, so you should add a couple dashes of sesame oil to your filling.

Directions for the Filling

1. Cut the Cabbage leaves into 1” squares and the ribs into 1⁄4” squares.
2. Heavily salt the cabbage and set aside.
3. Meanwhile mince up the mushrooms, and scallions and work them into the cabbage mixture and let that sit for 5-10 minutes.
4. Take moderate handfuls of the cabbage, mushroom, and scallion mixture and squeeze as much of the water as you can out. Transfer each handful to a new bowl.
5. Re-mix all of these ingredients and add some more salt if you need. Allow to sit another 5-10 minutes, then do another round of squeezing. The goal is to remove as much moisture from the vegetables as possible. You may have to do more than a couple of rounds of squeezing.
6. As you squeeze out the moisture a lot of the salt you mix in will be removed, but if your mixture gets too salty, feel free to give your vegetables a quick rinse with cold water and squeeze all of that out.
7. Mince up the garlic and ginger
8. Combine the ground meats, garlic, ginger, squeezed vegetables, shaoxing wine, dashi, and Toban Djan. Season with Fish Sauce, sugar, and white pepper to taste.
9. When I am seasoning I will make a single dumpling and cook it in a pot of boiling water. This lets me taste the filling without any other variables.

Directions for Cooking

1. Using the Control More feature in the Hestan Cue app, set the temperature on your Hestan Cue to 400˚F
2. Add 3 Tbs of oil (I like peanut oil).
3. When preheated, add the dumplings in a clockwise pattern (as many as you want).
4. Cook for 2 minutes then rotate each dumpling so they face the other way.
5. Cook for another 2 minutes (Feel free to add more time if you want more crust).
6. Add ¼ cup of water and immediately cover.
7. Once covered, reduce the temperature to 275˚F and simmer for 10 min.
8. After 10 minutes, uncover and allow any remaining liquid to evaporate.
9. Once all of the liquid is gone, scrape the pot stickers off of the bottom with a metal spatula. Don't worry, you can use metal...your Cue can handle it.
10. Serve and enjoy!

Adjusting the Recipe for a Regular Stovetop

You don't have to have a Cue System to cook this recipe, but you will get a lot better results with the precise temperature control on Cue. If you do use your stovetop, just be sure to get the most accurate estimate of the temperature as you can using the knob– and, monitor the food more carefully if you are using a different stovetop.

If you're ready to step up your stovetop and get precise with your pan, check out the different Cue Smart Cooking systems and get cooking with video-guided recipe content and down-to-the-degree temperature control.

We love to see what you are cooking on Cue. Look for more inspiration and share your recipes or ask our Chefs for advice in our Facebook community. 

For more recipe inspiration check out the Cue app, where you can discover over 500 chef-crafted recipes, all with step-by-step video guidance from prep to plating. Download the Hestan Cue app for iOS and Android and learn more about precision cooking with Cue, and all the things you can do!