Mushroom Potstickers, a delicious dumplings with mushroom stuffing instead of the traditional meat stuffing. Dumplings can be boiled, pan fried, steamed or oil fried. Potstickers are actually "steam-fried" dumplings and it has the plus of both steamed and fried dumplings.

In general, all potstickers are dumplings, but not all dumplings are potstickers, dumplings got various famous based on how it's being cooked. I have been making steamed dumplings for years now. In India and Nepal, the steamed dumplings are also known as momos, they are the most famous street food across the country.

When we were in Bangalore, at least 4 to 5 momos shop in our area within half a kilometer distance. Eating piping hot momos standing at the side of the road straight from the steamer on winter day evening is a pure bliss. Instead of pan fry the dumpling in this recipe, you can steam it as regular momos and have it with some spicy sauce.

Ok, Now coming to potstickers, i got introduced to this when we were in Houston from BJ's restaurant. Instantly i loved it at once and it became our regular whenever we visited there and later even i had started to make them at home regularly.

Basically, Chinese cooking needs a lot of prep work but cooking time is very minimal. Right from chopping the veggies thinly & shaping the dumpling nicely all takes a lot of time unless you have a good vegetable chopper and expert in shaping dumplings.

For a while , everytime time I make maida poori at home, I reserve some dough to try various dumpling shapes and now I can confidently say that I make decent dumplings.

Related: How to make Chinese Spring roll

While sitting to write this post, I remembered a lovely Chinese couple. Almost a year ago , when we were new in Canada, we shared a house with a elderly Chinese couple for a month before we got our own place. We both didn't know a common language to communicate with each other, still without any problem we communicate with sign language and make each other understand what we're saying.

It's one of the most interesting experiences in my life. Actually the house belongs to their daughter, through her only, we booked the accommodation and we lived on one floor and her parents lived on another floor and we both shared the kitchen.

Mostly, the elder man in the house do all the cooking, and don't know whether the men cooking in chinese culture is common or not. Once in a week, the lady of the house shapes the wontons after dinner and freezes them. OMG, she was so fast and literally shaped 100 of wontons in mins.

I was looking at her in astonishment while preparing our dinner. For a quick dinner and breakfast, they boil a few frozen wontons in the broth and serve along with some boiled egg and stir fry veggies.

Related: How to make flower shape momos

She is one of a kind soul and likes to feed us whatever they cook as like any mother. Whenever their daughter visits the house, through her she gets to know whether we eat pork, beef and all, so that later she can share with us.

One day she gave me a bowl of chicken soup as she knew through her daughter that we eat chicken and fish. In the soup, other than chicken, it had some other black stuff in it and wondering what it was, so asked her, she kindly took me to the pantry and showed all the ingredients that they used in the soup to make us comfortable and eat!! How wonderful is it, right??

Like the saying "One person is enough to change your perspective about something ", they did for us about the Chinese culture. I have so many good memories from that one month stay, if i had started to write all, this post would have gone too long, so let me stop me here and head over to check the recipe of mushroom potstickers.

Related: How to make Chinese Steamed Bun

Mushroom Dumplings | Mushroom Potstickers

Preparation Time : 30 mins | Cooking Time : 15 mins | Makes : 8
Recipe Category: Dumplings | Recipe Cuisine: Asian

Ingredients
For stuffing
Mushroom(finely chopped) - 2 cup
Carrot(finely chopped) - 1/2 cup
Spring onion - 3
Garlic - 2
Soy sauce - 1 tbsp
Oil - 2 tsp
Salt -to taste
Pepper powder - to taste
For outer cover
All purpose flour - 1/2 cup
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Oil - 1/2 tsp
Water - as needed

Procedure

First let's prepare the dough, add flour, salt & oil in a bowl, mix it well.

Then add water and make a stiff dough . Cover it with lid and set it aside for 30 mins.

In the mean time, let's prepare the filling. Chop all the veggies finely and keep it ready. Heat the oil in a pan.

Add garlic and white part of the green onions and saute till they are aromatic. Next add the carrot & saute it for 2-3 mins.

Once the carrots are half cooked, add the mushroom & salt and saute.

Mushrooms tend to leave lot of water, cook till all the moisture evaporates and the veggies are cooked, add the soy sauce and mix it well.

Finally add the pepper powder and green parts of spring onion. Mix it well and switch off the flame. Let the stuffing to cool completely.

In the mean time, let's roll the dough, roll the dough into log and cut into eight equal parts and roll them into smooth balls.

Take a dough and roll into thin sheets, do the same for all the dough.

Add around a tbsp of stuffing at the center of a sheet, take the center of the dough from both sides and pinch together.

Now starting from the center, make a small pleat from the front side of the dough and seal it together with the back side of the dough, do till it reaches the end.

Do the same way on the other side too.

Similarly shape all the dumplings. Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a pan, add the dumplings.

Cook them without disturbing until the bottom of the dumplings are golden brown. Next add water in to the pan till the dumplings are half immersed in the water.