As part of our recent kitchen experiments making things we’ve not made before, we recently decided on making Chinese Pot Stickers. The great thing about Pot Stickers, in my opinion, is that they’re a mixture of all the best parts of a dumpling: They’re both crispy and they’re soft and steamed. And delicious.

There are plenty of recipes abound for Pot Stickers, but the main thing is to have a mixture that tastes good and sticks together without being goopy. I made a pork and ginger mixture, with cabbage. I threw some minced ginger, minced garlic, cabbage and ground pork along with some soy; an egg bound it together. I smelled the mix a few times until it seemed to have the right amounts of the flavours I wanted. Justine did the same, but with cabbage, mushrooms, spring onions, carrot and a couple of eggs as it wasn’t very sticky.

The great thing about living in the “Asian” part of the city is that it’s super easy to find Wonton wrappers. We grabbed a small packet (which we later found out had 50 wrappers) to use. Assembling the dumplings couldn’t be easier: Put a teaspoon of your mix into the middle, fold the dumpling wrapper over, and pinch it a few times to seal and look pretty. At least it sounds simple — and it was, up until the the pinching part. Luckily, Justine recognised the technique was the same as making a pastie, so after a few duds and a larger number of poorly assembled dumplings, I got up to speed. To pinch the dumplings once folded, you pinch a small part of the edge of the wrapper, then fold a small part back over itself, then pinch that closed.

After completely ruining two of the wrappers, we ended with 48 dumplings, and a lot of left over filling. Cooking the dumplings is a simple affair. To cook, cover a pan with sesame oil (other oil will do, I’m sure), throw the dumplings on and let sizzle for a minute or two, until the base is crispy. The dumplings aren’t stuck to the pan which is a good sign that the name may be misleading.

Once you think the dumplings are cooked enough on the bottom, throw a cup of water into the pan and cover straight away. Since you have hot oil cooking there will be an almighty sizzle with oil splattering everywhere. As I had to cover the pan I used the lid as a shield and slammed it onto the pan as fast as I could. The immense steam pressure inside causes the usually-tight-lid to bounce around in what I find an extremely amusing display. Leave the dumplings steaming for a few minutes and you’ll find the liquid evaporates pretty fast. Once it has evaporated you just need to let the dumplings cook for another couple of minutes to crisp up again.

And this is where Pot Stickers get their name. They’ll be stuck to the pan pretty well now. An egg flip or spatula will get the off the pan quite easily but you need to be careful. The final result was delicious, fun to make and very easy. While it does take some time to assemble the dumplings, you can do other things, such as get drunk, chat or listen to music, so the time passes quickly enough. We froze around half of the dumplings (eating 12 each sounds like a lot, but they’re pretty small).

These are certainly something we’ll make again.