Notes:

Having found the Long Life Vegi House while I was in CA last week, and experienced the joys of potstickers made with faux meat (gluten) I made a low-fat version of these last night. This looks like a phenomenal Amount of work but it only took about 1.5 hours total. Of course, that may seem like a phenomenal Amount of time to some.

Gluten Preparation:

This is hard to make from regular flour, but if you buy the (more expensive) de-starched wheat gluten, it's practically foolproof.

mix until a dense dough forms, adding more gluten flour if the blob feels wet. Knead for a few minutes, but don't fold over. If you fold the blob after most of the water is absorbed, the parts won't stick together, and the gluten will fall apart when you slice it. Slice the gluten into about 10 chunks, after letting it rest for a few minutes.

Boil for approximately 1 hr. in a large pot, starting with about 10 cup of broth made of water plus 1/2 cup dry white wine, 1/4 cup soy sauce, nutritional yeast, garlic, and ginger. The gluten will puff up so leave space at the top of the pot. let cool. Properly made gluten will un-puff and become fairly dense.

On to the potstickers.

Filling Preparation:

put this mixture in a large bowl and add 1.5 cup cabbage, finely shredded or foodprocessed if you lack the patience to shred

Press the liquid out of about half of your batch of gluten, and cut the chunks into smaller pieces. Put these in the food processor and whirl until the gluten is similar in texture to cooked ground meat. (This worked beautifully for me with the batch of gluten I made last night, but results may vary). Add this to the filling mixture.

Sauce Preparation:

Mix to make a soft dough and knead 5 min. This is sticky dough, you will need to add some extra flour but don't add too much as it needs to be soft. Basically it's a dough-handling nightmare but once you make a few mistakes your potstickers will start looking normal and the thick yummy noodle skins will be well worth the trouble.

Divide the dough into 1" diameter balls. Take each ball, roll it out to about 4" in diameter, put a blob of filling in the middle, pinch several pleats in the edge on one side, and fold the other side over. The sticky dough sticks together much better than prefab skins, so you won't have to worry about the potstickers opening up. Place finished potstickers on a floured plate (VERY important to flour).

Put a layer of large cabbage leaves in a bamboo steamer and lay potstickers on top. They will stick to the moist leaves, but not as much as they would to the steamer. Steam until skins become translucent.

You will probably need 2 batches of skins for the Amount of filling. One today and one tomorrow...

Skins Preparation:

Mix and let stand for a while, then dip...

Servings:
Source: Cynthia Gibas, from Betty Crocker LeeAnn Chin Chinese cookbook
Submitted by: Recipe Group Member
Date: Feb 21, 1995

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