“My favorite dumpling is a hot dumpling,” my friend Chris observed the other day, after we had each wrapped and devoured dozens of potstickers. Prior to that day, I hadn’t wrapped a single dumpling in years.  But growing up, my siblings and I would regularly find ourselves gathered around the kitchen island, helping my mother make dumplings for dinner.  She’d throw vegetables, meat, and spices in her food processor–a bit of this, a bit of that–tasting along the way.  (Note: my mom insists this is safe, but I recommend microwaving a little bit of filling instead!) My mother would call us to action once the filling was ready, and the table would quickly become littered with rice bowls of water for sealing the dumpling wrappers, thickened and opaque from flour-coated fingers; packets of premade dumpling wrappers, about 30 to the bundle; and, eventually, dinner plates stacked full with finished dumplings, ready for boiling.   My sister’s dumplings were flourished, with lovely, neat pleats; my brother’s were sturdy and unadorned…and mine looked like a dumpling representation of my inconsistent, impatient handwriting.  Some of my dumplings had extravagant, experimental folds, others featured filling spilling out the sealed sides (a no-no in dumpling-wrapping, if there ever was … Continue reading Juicy Pan-Fried Chinese Dumplings with Handmade Wrappers (Guo Tie)