- 3 hours ago
Ready Jet Cook - Season 3 Episode 4 - Dumplings & Wontons
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00:00Hey guys, I'm Jet Tila and this is Ready Jet Cook,
00:03where I break down the core techniques of Asian cuisine
00:06and show you my favorite dishes from shop to finish.
00:10Today is all about dumplings.
00:12We're taking on potstickers, aka wok tip in Cantonese,
00:16but with a chefy twist that's sure to impress.
00:19And then it's wonton time.
00:21I'll teach you how to achieve that perfect fold
00:23before turning them into a delicious wonton soup.
00:30Most potstickers are bought from the frozen aisle.
00:33You grab that bag of potstickers, you cook them up at home,
00:35and they're fine, I have nothing against frozen potstickers,
00:38but my grandma and I used to make these amazing
00:40dim sum style potstickers from scratch,
00:43and I'm gonna show you why it's worth it
00:45to make them from scratch.
00:46Let's start by getting the right wrappers.
00:49So let's start with gyoza versus wonton versus potsticker.
00:54These are the smaller wrappers.
00:55They basically come in kind of two colors.
00:57One's gonna have more egg in color,
01:00which is usually the wonton,
01:02and the other one's gonna be gyoza,
01:03which is gonna be round.
01:05Potstickers, gyoza, same wrapper, all right?
01:08Just different cultures.
01:10Both are made with wheat flour, similar to noodle making.
01:14They're gonna vary by thickness,
01:16meaning a gyoza is a lot thicker than a wonton.
01:19They're also gonna vary by fat content,
01:21which is either gonna give you a richer,
01:23softer mouthfeel or less fat,
01:25which is gonna be a stiffer mouthfeel.
01:26And with a potsticker, you want a round wrapper
01:28because we're gonna do this kind of ornate wrapping fold
01:32that makes it like a half moon.
01:34Making any of these wrappers from scratch
01:36takes a ton of skill, takes forever,
01:38and it's not easy at all.
01:40Let's grab this and the rest of our filling ingredients.
01:46All right, so in terms of potstickers,
01:48I love fatty pork.
01:51And you're like, well, what's the difference
01:52between fatty pork and lean pork?
01:54And the answer is a lot.
01:55The higher the fat percentage in the pork,
01:57the more juicy, the better mouthfeel.
02:00Visually, what I'm looking for
02:01is a really nice kind of marbling.
02:04Just like on a steak,
02:05you can actually see marbling here in this ground pork.
02:08And another thing visually you can look for
02:10is the color.
02:12I mean, look at this.
02:12It's pink.
02:13It looks really fresh.
02:15The fat parts are really white.
02:17This is exactly what I want.
02:19Let's get cooking.
02:26Here's what makes a potsticker a potsticker.
02:28It's pan fried on the bottom and steamed all around.
02:31It's all about technique with this dish.
02:33I'm going to start by prepping my ginger,
02:35garlic, and scallions.
02:36You've seen me chop garlic a ton of times,
02:38but I'm going to give you one tip.
02:40I'm using a rasp.
02:42It's like a tiny, tiny grater.
02:44This is the best way to get garlic so tiny
02:47that it melts right into any filling.
02:49So in a second, I'm going to turn this rasp over
02:52so you can just see how fine that gets it.
02:54Another cool thing about a rasp is, check this out.
02:57Let's get it tight enough.
02:58It actually captures the skin of the garlic
03:01so you can get rid of that, fold it over,
03:04and you get pure garlic pulp.
03:06Check that out.
03:07Look at that.
03:08That's perfect.
03:09All right.
03:09So now I'm going to do the same thing to ginger.
03:13So I'm just going to take the ginger right onto the rasp,
03:16add nice pressure to it.
03:18You never have to peel your ginger when using a rasp.
03:21This is going to break down any fibrous parts so fine
03:23that it's going to melt right into the filling.
03:26And just look at all that perfect ginger pulp.
03:30So let's put the ginger and garlic to the side
03:34and cut up some scallions.
03:35For scallions, very simple.
03:37Take the root and the tip off, half, gather, and just very, very thin slices.
03:47All right.
03:48All right.
03:49I bet you never heard this line.
03:51Let's talk fatty pork.
03:52I grew up in our family's grocery stores.
03:55Back in the day when we had things like butchers,
03:57you could actually specify how much fat you wanted in your ground pork.
04:00So I would walk up and I want ground pork, very fatty.
04:04So about 30% to 40%, and I want it ground once with a large die.
04:09That means they're grinding it and pushing it through a very, very large hole.
04:13And that's what gives you that amazing mouthfeel of a good pot sticker.
04:17If you don't have that luxury, try to find a package of ground pork
04:21that has the most amount of fat in it.
04:24Scallion, garlic, ginger, and now it's time to add the seasonings.
04:29I'm going to add a bit of chicken powder for salt.
04:33Oyster sauce is going to give that very deep umami flavor.
04:38Some white pepper, sesame oil for aroma.
04:43And we're going to add a little slurry to bind this all together.
04:47You know that slurry starts to thicken as food heats up.
04:53So as the pot sticker cooks, the slurry is really going to help tighten up that filling.
04:58This is where I'm going to take some chopsticks and really knead this together pretty well.
05:03Think smash burger.
05:04When you apply all that pressure down over heat,
05:09it actually creates almost like a lacy skirt to that burger.
05:13We want the fat here to emulsify and almost whip up
05:17and create a really nice texture in this dumpling.
05:20And you can actually start to hear it.
05:22Talk to me.
05:23It starts to sound different when all those ingredients are emulsified.
05:30I'm actually kneading for about one to two minutes until this mixture turns sticky and cohesive.
05:38I'm going to chill this to firm it up, but I already made one ahead so we can get wrapping.
05:42Let's get wrapping.
05:44So these are the wrappers we are talking about.
05:48They are round.
05:49They are whiter than like yellow wonton wrappers.
05:53And they're pretty durable.
05:55I like putting the wrapper in my non-dominant hand,
05:58taking like two teaspoons of filling right into the center.
06:04And I'll actually wet the wrapper all the way around.
06:09And I'm going to show you the way my grandma did it.
06:12I will fold it into a half moon, pinch in the end slightly.
06:19And now I'm pleating one side, leaving the other side unpleated and pushed together.
06:29The meat's in the way.
06:30Just push it down like that.
06:32Pleat, push, keep going down.
06:36Pleat, pleat, push.
06:39And you'll find as you're pleating and pushing,
06:43the potsticker actually curls kind of into a crescent.
06:47And when you finally get to the end, you have a pretty little potsticker.
06:52And you can set it down.
06:54Dumplings have massive symbolism across Asia.
06:57During Chinese New Year, we eat them because they look like gold ingots.
07:01We're using store-bought wrappers, but my grandma would make the dough herself.
07:07And she would sit there and roll out these doughs with like a drinking glass.
07:12I mean, that was straight OG.
07:14That was original grandma.
07:18And that's how you get a nice symmetrical dumpling.
07:21Look, this is a skill that takes a lot of years to master.
07:24Don't let that discourage you from making them.
07:26If it's not perfect, don't stress.
07:27It's still going to be delicious.
07:29Let's fry these up.
07:32So I preheated a pan that has a tight-fitting lid.
07:34And I'm going to add a few tablespoons of neutral oil.
07:37This is going to help crisp up those bottoms.
07:40I'm going to lay the potstickers bottom side down.
07:43Think about them like a triangle.
07:45So if you need to actually press them down so they sit, that's perfectly fine.
07:51Whenever you're not cooking right away, wrap these tightly and put them in the freezer.
07:55And cook them frozen if you do freeze.
07:58So all I'm trying to do here is to get a nice brown bottom.
08:01I'm going to add a little bit of water and allow them to steam.
08:08You want this tight-fitting lid because once you add the water,
08:11the lid is going to capture all that steam.
08:14And you're not just getting heat from the bottom.
08:15Now you're getting a great steam from all sides.
08:18It's going to help steam up those skins so they're nice and supple.
08:21And it's going to cook the protein all the way through.
08:26After the initial steam, I'm just giving them a wiggle to release them from the bottom.
08:32I'm looking for the dumpling skins to be nice and soft.
08:35I'm looking for the meat to be cooked through.
08:38And the bottoms to be nice, light brown.
08:40That's what I'm looking for right there.
08:42So now I'm going to do the final arrangement before I put the slurry.
08:46Because once the slurry is in, they're locked down forever.
08:49All right, I'm going to add a tiny bit of oil in there.
08:52You've watched me make slurry a million times.
08:54All that's in here is cornstarch, water, a little bit of vinegar, and a little bit of flour.
09:00This technique is going to work with fresh or frozen dumplings.
09:04And I'm making sure the slurry is nice and thin,
09:08but butts up into each potsticker so it grabs it.
09:12You're looking for the thickness of like a rice paper for spring rolls.
09:17This crispy skirting technique is actually a Japanese technique,
09:20but I love it so much I serve all my potstickers this way now.
09:24Now I'm just going to let the skirt crisp up and solidify.
09:27I know when it's ready when the skirt is evenly brown on the bottom,
09:30because I'm actually going to invert this and serve it crispy skirt up.
09:34This is probably going to take about three to four minutes.
09:37Now I'm just going to let this cook up now.
09:40I can start to see parts of it getting nice and brown and solidifying.
09:45All right, that is looking great. You can see that the skirt is crisping up.
09:50It's brown on all sides and it's solid. It's not soft anywhere.
09:55Doing the final slide check. All right, let's plate this up.
09:58So this takes a little bit of coordination.
10:00I'm actually going to put the plate on and flip it all over and do the big reveal.
10:04Put the plate over. Make sure you've got one good grip on the handle, one grip on the plate.
10:11Flip it over. Say a prayer. And look at that gorgeous, crispy skirt.
10:21As much as I want to eat this right now, as an homage to grandma,
10:25I can't eat this without making grandma sauce. And it's very, very simple. Check it out.
10:30Sugar. Some really high quality soy sauce. All equal parts, by the way, so it's very easy to see.
10:37And sriracha. The level of heat is totally up to you, but this was always the sauce that she made
10:45anytime we were eating any kind of dumplings. These are super fun to eat because I actually get to
10:52crack through that lacy skirt to grab one piece of potsticker. Look at that.
11:00A little dip in grandma sauce. Are you hearing that crunch? It's juicy. It's delicious. It's
11:14simultaneously crispy. And that grandma sauce gives you that sweet, spicy, salty kick. This is a dish
11:20my grandma would be proud of. When we come back, I'll show you another classic dumpling dish, wonton soup.
11:26Welcome back, team. We're talking Cantonese dumplings today. We've already covered potstickers
11:32with a crispy skirt. Now we're going to dip into the world of wontons.
11:40For a wonton wrapper, you're going to want a square wrapper. I like the yellow wrappers because I think
11:45they look more colorful in the steamer basket, but these usually mean they have a little more egg and,
11:51to tell you the truth, just a little bit of food color in them, which is totally, totally fine. Since
11:57we're making wontons, I'm going to get these square wonton wrappers. Let's talk about the world of
12:03Chinese leafy greens. Specifically for wonton soup, I love using baby bok choy. As you can see,
12:12it's kind of a light green to dark green leaf profile. Once you cook it either in a soup or
12:17stir fry,
12:18I think it has a really nice crunch to it and it also has like a mild, almost like sweet
12:23spinachy
12:24flavor if you've never had it before. Bok choy also has a bulb on the bottom and then the leaf
12:30kind of
12:30comes up from it. These are baby bok choy because once they get bigger, the actual bulbs and stalks
12:35get really white in color, which the translation of bok choy means white vegetable. There you go,
12:41there's an extra one for you. What I'm looking for in bok choy is whole, full bulbs, no brokenness in
12:47the
12:47stem or the leaf. A nice even color tone all the way through. Give it a little squeeze. You should
12:53barely give. If it yields too much, it's probably been on the shelf a little too long. All right,
12:58let's go make our wonton soup.
13:05So what makes a wonton a wonton? Wontons are a type of dumpling characterized by a thin wrapper,
13:11delicate filling, and they're often served in soup or as an appetizer. As opposed to their heartier
13:17dumpling cousins that are very filling on their own. I'm starting by bringing this water up to a
13:22simmer, not a full boil. And I'm going to add some aromatics, which are scallions and ginger. This stock
13:29is one of my amazing quick stock. So you're not doing chicken bones. I'm going to show you how
13:34restaurants get to delicious flavor really quickly. Ginger and scallions are going to give you an amazing
13:40perfume to this broth. So just a little bit of both there. And I'm going to need a little ginger
13:46to
13:47make the wonton. I'm going to show you a really cool trick on how to grate some ginger. Everybody has
13:52a
13:53box grater at home. And everybody has some plastic wrap. I want you to find the smooth small holes here.
14:01And I want you just to put your plastic wrap tightly over it. Taking your ginger peel and all,
14:07I'm just going to rub this back and forth. Light pressure. You don't have to go crazy.
14:14So check it out, friends. This is pure ginger pulp. No fibers. All the fibers here are left behind
14:22on the ginger. That's all I need. Three simple ingredients to finish my quick broth. Chicken powder,
14:29a tiny bit of sesame oil, just for that aroma. And we're going to add a little bit of oyster
14:35sauce.
14:35This is a fantastic Chinese quick broth for anything, not just wonton soup, but if you're doing noodle
14:43soups, if you're doing like hot and sour soup, if you're doing egg drop soup, this is the base right
14:48here. So chicken powder is bringing the salt, the oyster sauce is bringing that umami and soy flavor,
14:54and the sesame oil gives that perfect aroma. While that simmers for 10 minutes, let's make our filling.
14:59Starting with a bowl of coarsely ground pork, I'm going to add my ginger, and it's time to start cutting
15:04up
15:04some shrimp. I like a very coarse ground shrimp because I want each wonton to be bursting with a
15:11nice piece of pork, a big piece of shrimp. So I'm just going to process this down into probably like
15:17quarter inch pieces. And the unevenness of the shrimp really kind of adds to the eating experience as well.
15:23I don't want this shrimp so small that it's mealy. I want to really get those nice little pops of
15:30shrimp
15:31throughout each wonton. All right, so I'm just looking for like extra big pieces. I'll cut those
15:36down. But that's what I'm looking for right there. That's going to marry with the pork to continue the
15:42filling. All right, next, I need one scallion, very thinly sliced. You Ready Jet Cook OGs know that I buy
15:51a slice most of the time. This is one time you don't buy a slice. I just want very, very
15:57thin pieces of
15:58scallion. So they fold in nice and evenly to this wonton filling. Some of my earliest food memories
16:04are sitting around and making wontons with grandma. She was my primary caregiver. So imagine this like
16:11three year old kid sitting around the table with grandma just wrapping wontons. Another really great
16:17flavor bomb secret in the Chinese kitchen is mushroom powder. This is going to give you a good amount of
16:23salt plus a ton of umami. Next, a little bit of sugar. Corn starch is going to help bind this
16:30all together.
16:32White pepper. And I'm using premium soy sauce. What does that mean? I'm looking for soy sauce that's
16:38brewed, not hydrolyzed. And you can tell by this really nice rich color. The package will say premium soy.
16:46Next, a little bit of oyster sauce. And then lastly, a little sesame oil for some aroma. Those of you
16:54OG
16:54Ready Jet cookers are going to realize it's really similar to sumai. And if you've never made sumai,
17:00check out that recipe. Just like I made it with grandma, we continue that tradition with our kids. So
17:05Ali and I will make the dumpling filling and then we'll all sit around the table and actually make
17:11little wontons and then make the wonton soup for dinner. I'm going to let this chill for 30 minutes
17:17so it firms up and makes it easier for wrapping. Coming up is the fun part where I show you
17:21how to
17:21build these wontons. So make sure to stick around. All right, my broth is looking great. Let's make
17:27some wontons. So to do so, I've created a little station. I've got my wonton wrappers that have been
17:32hanging out under a moist towel. I've got some water to seal the edges. There are a few different ways
17:37to
17:37make wontons, but the easiest way is just what I call like a golden purse. I'm just going to wet
17:42the
17:43edges, put about a teaspoon ish of filling. I'm going to bring two edges together and then seal the
17:55other two edges. That's it. You're just making a little purse just like that. You can also do filling
18:01first and then come over with your water to seal. I'm basically doing the triangle, right? And then
18:11I'm bringing in the other two sides and that completes the seal. You just want to make sure
18:15that the wrapper seals in the protein. So once it hits the water, it sucks it all in and it
18:21makes
18:21a nice little wonton. I'm going to use up all this filling and once I'm done, we're going to go
18:26ahead
18:26and make the wonton soup. So I've got about two quarts of water boiling and this is going to be
18:34to cook off the wontons and the bok choy to make the wonton soup. Wontons go right into the boiling
18:40water for about one to two minutes. The visual indicator you're looking for is when they float.
18:46Once they float, they are cooked through and you want to fish them out and finish your soup
18:50because if you keep boiling these, like pasta, they can actually get over.
18:54If you're not boiling wontons, these are also perfect for fried wontons. Put a little sweet
18:59chili or plum sauce and you have the perfect appetizer. This is also the time to fish out
19:03that ginger and scallion from my stock. All right, I'm just going to coax the wontons around
19:10so they don't stick to the bottom or each other and I can see them just starting to float already.
19:15I'm going to grab some bok choy just to quick blanch it in the same water. This is just baby
19:20bok choy
19:20with the bottoms removed and the leaves exposed. Let's go on right in.
19:26Wontons are floating. Let me grab the bowl to hold them in until the soup's done.
19:31Let's fish them out, drain them slightly and put them right in the bowl. If you're superstitious,
19:39Chinese love the number eight because it rhymes with luck. So I'm doing eight wontons.
19:45Fat is a word for eight. Fat is a word for luck. I'm blanching these bok choy leaves until they're
19:50bright green and the stems just start to give a little. You can make this a full meal by blanching
19:56off some egg noodles and you've got wonton noodle soup. Strained out the aromatics from the stock,
20:01I brought it up to a simmer and it's ready to pour into the wontons.
20:09I like to hit each bowl with a little bit of scallion and just a dusting of white pepper.
20:15There it is, wonton soup like grandma used to make. Perfect bite is a little bit of bok choy. One
20:23of these wontons.
20:33The wontons are full of umami. The soup is rich and comforting. And then that bok choy is that perfect
20:41counterpoint. It's slightly bitter, still sweet and crunchy. This dish hits every happy note.
20:47So go ahead and try this wonton soup for yourself. It's an instant classic. All right family, our
20:53dumpling day is done. These tricks are sure to make you a home cook hero. So give them a try
20:58and
20:59I'm going to catch you next time on Ready, Jet, Cook.
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