I feel like anyone I talk to around my age has fond memories of frozen potstickers as a kid. When mom or dad were too busy to cook, getting to eat a mountain of pan fried pot stickers always felt like a small victory as a kid. While my taste preferences have evolved from my primary school days, my love of dumplings has not. Here in Montréal we have a few great soup dumpling places, however, I’ve yet to find one where the vegetarian options are up to snuff. So, I decided to try and make some delicious homemade dumplings to fill the craving. 

These essentially contain all my favorite ingredients, wrapped into a dumpling and then pan fried. For texture and umami flavor, there are some rehydrated shiitake mushrooms. There is napa cabbage for crunchy and mildly sweet flavor and tofu for protein. While this recipe seems pretty involved due to the lengthy directions, it does come together relatively quickly with the use of a food processor. Additionally, wrapping dumplings can always take time, but makes a great meal to make with friends or a partner to speed up the process. I hope these delicious potstickers make their way into your house soon! 

Active time: 40 minutes

Cook time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

• 60g dried shiitake mushrooms
• 1 block extra firm tofu
• 5 tbsp soy sauce
• 3 tbsp rice vinegar
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 2 tbsp orange juice
• ½ tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp gochugaru 
• ¼ tsp msg
• ½ a head of napa cabbage
• 2 medium carrots, washed & stems removed
• 1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced
• 500g dumpling wrappers
• Neutral oil, for cooking

Directions

1. A few hours ahead of time, soak the dried mushrooms in a shallow bowl, mixing up once or twice while they soak so they rehydrate evenly. Also, begin to press the tofu at the same time. 
2. In a large bowl, crumble the tofu. There are a few different ways to do this, either using the back of a fork with the block resting on a cutting board, but personally I prefer just breaking it apart with my hands. Make sure that it is broken into relatively small, homogenous chunks as it will go into dumplings. 
3. Add the soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, orange juice, garlic powder, gochugaru and msg to the tofu and mix to coat evenly. Let it sit while preparing the vegetables. 
4. Cut the napa cabbage into quarters the long way, so you have two long spears, thinly shave the cabbage. Getting it thin is key, as the filling can’t be chunky. 
5. Remove the mushrooms from the liquid in which they were soaking, squeeze out any excess liquid and cut off the stems. The broth won’t be used in this recipe but it is super delicious and I would suggest filtering it through a coffee filter and keeping it for other recipes. 
6. Get out a food processor with both the grater attachment and the blade attachment. Starting with the grater attachment, grate the mushrooms and the carrots. Then switch to the blade attachment retaining the grated carrots and mushrooms in the processor. Process until it is broken into smaller bits, but not approaching the point of  a paste. 
7.  Add the cabbage, mushrooms, carrots and green onions to the large bowl with the tofu. Mix to combine. 
8. Heat a large non-stick pan on medium-high heat. Add in a dash of neutral oil and cook the dumpling filling for 9-10 minutes until the cabbage has softened and the mixture has shrunk in size, set aside in the same bowl as before to cool. 
9. When the filling has cooled down enough, assemble the pot stickers. Add about a ½ tbsp of filling to the center of a dumpling wrapper. Dip your finger in a bowl of water and dab the outer edge of the wrapper. Fold it in two and pinch shut around the edges. Repeat until desired number of pot stickers reached*.
10. Heat the same pan on medium-high heat. Add another dash of neutral oil and add in the pot stickers. Cook until the bottom side has browned, 3-4 minutes. Then flip and add in a dash of water and put a lid on the pan to steam the potstickers. Cook for another 2-3 minutes before serving & enjoying while warm!

*To be noted: Typically I like to only make the dumplings on an as needed basis, storing the rest of the filling in the fridge, but these also make good meal prepping food to make many in advance.