Pork Pot Stickers

The key is the steam-then-fry technique: add water to hot pan with dumplings, cover to steam, then remove lid to crisp bottoms. Filling should be seasoned assertively. Pleating takes practice but isn't essential for flavor.

The Chinese dumpling family — known as jiaozi — has one of the longest documented food histories in the world. The Northern Qi dynasty scholar Yan Zhitui, writing in the 6th century AD, noted that "today the jiaozi, shaped like a crescent moon, is a common food in the world," and 7th and 8th century dumplings have been found in tombs at Turfan in western China. Traditional accounts trace the boiled dumpling's origin even further back, to the Eastern Han dynasty physician Zhang Zhongjing (AD 25–220), who is said to have made them as a warming medicine for frostbitten patients during a bitter winter. The specific technique that makes a pot sticker a pot sticker — the pan-fry-and-steam method that produces a crispy bottom and tender top — has its own story. The dumpling's Mandarin name, guōtiē, literally translates as "wok stick," and the legend behind that name dates to the Song Dynasty (960–1127 AD): an imperial court chef forgot boiling dumplings in a wok; the water evaporated; the dumplings fused to the base of the pan. Rather than throw the ruined batch away, the resourceful cook served them anyway. The guests loved the contrast of the crunchy, caramelised base against the soft, yielding filling. The word potsticker was introduced to the English-speaking world in the revised 1949 edition of Buwei Yang Chao's How to Cook and Eat in Chinese (Wikipedia). Gyoza — the Japanese counterpart to guotie, thinner-wrapped and more garlicky — reached Japan with soldiers returning from China after the Second World War, demonstrating how broadly a single cooking concept has traveled.