A Day of Asian Cooking

Time to travel through Asia for a day! One of the ingredients we used for a lo mein recipe are dried lily buds, as seen below. They are air-dried lily buds and are typically used in Chinese cuisine. They work nicely in a lo mein recipe because they have the same shape and color as noodles.

 Starting to fill potstickers with ground turkey, veggies, and cabbage.

 To make these potstickers, circles are cut from homemade dough (or you can use store-bought), about a tablespoon of filling is spooned onto one half of the circle, and the edges are crimped.

Here's mine! 

 The potstickers are fried in a wok in oil, then covered with a bowl and a few drops of water and steamed for a few minutes.

Chef's potstickers plank 

Bracha's potstickers plate:

 Josh and I worked on the filling for egg rolls, shredding cabbage, carrots, scallions, etc. To prepare the egg roll filling, put all the ingredients in a colander because water from the veggies may drip out while you're rolling. 

 Josh rolling:

They see me rollin', they hatin'....

 We fried the egg rolls in the deep fryer and then let them rest on a roasting rack. 

The rolls were cut on a diagonal so they would stand up and served with duck sauce for dipping. 

Bonnie frying a batch of egg rolls. 

Chef starting on the lo mein:

Marinated steak for Szechuan Beef: 

Back: Szechuan Beef  /  Front: Vegetable Lo Mein 

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Potstickers
Filling:
8 oz Napa cabbage
3 tsp kosher salt
1 lb ground turkey thigh
1/4 cup finely chopped scallions
1 TB white wine
1 tsp cornstarch
4 TB sesame oil
4 TB vegetable oil
1 tsp sugar
dash of white pepper

Dipping Sauce:1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil

Dough:
2 cups flour1 cup boiling water

Cut the cabbage into thin strips, mix with 2 tsp of salt and set aside. The salt will draw out the moisture so the filling won't be soggy. After 5 minutes, squeeze out the excess water.
Mix the cabbage, turkey, scallions, wine, cornstarch, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp sesame oil, sugar, and white pepper.

For the dough, mix the flour and boiling water until a soft dough forms. Knead and roll sections into 12-inch logs. Cut dough into sections and roll flat. Use a circle cutter to cut 2.5-3" rounds.

Spoon 1 TB of filling onto one half of the potsticker. 
Brush a tiny amount of water around the edges to serve as glue.
Fold the round in half, and tug and crimp the edges to seal. See this video, and skip to 3:26.
Heat a wok or heavy-bottomed pan with oil. Place the dumplings into the  oil and brown on each side, and the bottom. After they are golden brown, lower the fire.
Take a small amount of water and carefully pour the water into the wok, covering quickly with a lid or bowl.
Let the dumplings steam for 4-5 minutes to cook the meat.
Remove the bowl or lid carefully (it's hot!) and remove the potstickers from the wok.
Serve with the dipping sauce and some fresh scallions as garnish.

Enjoy!