Holiday Entertaining 2000: Small Goes Global


  Crab Pot Stickers With Spicy Sesame Dipping Sauce

The Chef
PATRICIA YEO of AZ

Servings
Makes 30 to 36 pot stickers.

Ingredients
1 teaspoon canola oil
1/2 cup garlic chives (optional)
4 ounces whitefish, diced (preferably cod)
3 small egg whites
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon fish sauce (optional)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 ounces lump crabmeat
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1/4 cup bias-cut scallions, white part only
1 package Shanghai-style wrappers or gyoza wrappers (preferably round white-flour wrappers)
1/4 cup peanut oil
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup white wine

Dipping Sauce:
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup lime juice
2 tablespoons sambal (available in Indonesian and some Chinese markets)
2 shallots, diced
2 tablespoons bias-cut scallions, green part only
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 teaspoon sugar

Cooking Instructions

sugar dissolves. Set aside.

Heat the canola oil in a nonstick pan, add the garlic chives, and sauté until wilted. Remove the chives from the pan and set aside to cool.

Place the fish, 2 egg whites, and cream in a food processor and blend until smooth. Add fish sauce and season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer the mixture to a chilled mixing bowl and fold in the crab, garlic chives, cilantro, and scallions.

Lightly beat the remaining egg white in a bowl. Keep the wrappers covered with a damp paper towel or plastic wrap. Place a walnut-size spoonful of filling in the center of each wrapper, fold in half over the filling to form a half-moon, and moisten the edges with egg white. Beginning at the right, pleat the top fold of the wrapper. After each pleat, pinch the dough to join it with the bottom fold. Proceed until the dumpling is fully sealed. Repeat with remaining wrappers, keeping the finished dumplings covered to prevent drying out.

Blanch the dumplings in a large pot of unsalted boiling water for 2 minutes, then remove with a slotted spoon and set aside to cool. (The dumplings can be made about 5 hours ahead, but must be tossed in a little canola oil before refrigerating to keep them from sticking together.) Heat 2 tablespoons peanut oil in a large nonstick pan, add some of the dumplings, and sauté, pressing down on the top of each dumpling to flatten and cook the underside until it is golden brown. Do not turn. Remove from the pan and repeat with remaining dumplings.

Fill the pan with a layer of dumplings, golden-brown side down, and deglaze the pan with half the chicken stock and wine. Cover, and let the pot stickers steam and warm through. Remove to a platter with a slotted spoon and repeat with remaining dumplings, adding stock and wine as necessary. Place warm pot stickers on a plate and serve with the spicy sesame dipping sauce on the side.