Mahi-Mahi Potstickers

This month's Daring Cooks challenge was to make Chinese dumplings or potstickers. The challenge is hosted by Jen from use real butter. The choice of filling and method of cooking were up to the individual cook (steaming makes dumplings, frying makes potstickers). Having seen recipes including shrimp and other fish before, I decided to make my potstickers using leftover Mahi-Mahi fillets tossed in with some other assorted ingredients.

As important as the filling is the dough itself. It's a simple flour and water dough, allowed to rest and rolled thin. After loading some filling into the dough, the dumplings are pinched and pleated together to seal them for baking.

Potsticker Dough:
2 cups flour

1/2 cup warm water, divided, plus more as needed

Pour the flour into a large bowl and add 1/4 cup warm water. Using your hands, mix together the water and flour. Add the remaining 1/4 cup of water a teaspoon at a time, continuing to mix and add until there are no longer any dry patches or cracks in the dough, and it's slightly sticky to the touch. Roll into a ball and flatten slightly to form a dome, then allow to rest for 30 minutes.

Mahi-Mahi filling:
1 lb. Mahi-Mahi, about 3 medium fillets

3 green onion stalks

2 medium carrots

4 oz. Gruyère cheese

Juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 egg, room temperature

Salt and pepper to taste

Slice the mahi-mahi fillets thinly, then mince it until fine. Slice the onion stalks very finely, make sure there aren't any large pieces remaining. Using a vegetable peeler, first peel the outside off of the carrots, and then continue peeling so you get long, thin strips of carrots. Gather these strips together and chop finely. Shred the cheese with the fine side of a shredder, then run your knife through it to break up any additional pieces. Combine the ingredients and add lemon, egg, then salt and pepper to taste. Take a teaspoon of this and fry on the stove-top, then taste to see if it needs additional seasoning.

Assembly:

Cut the rested dough into 1-inch ribbons, then cut each ribbon into 3/4-inch slices. Press each slice down, then roll thin (about 1/16th of an inch).

Place about 1 tablespoon of the filling in the center of each dumpling.

Press and seal the center portion, wedging the filling in the middle.

Begin to pleat the sides of the dough to form a seal.

Continue pleating until you reach the end.

Repeat with the other side. In a large skillet, add 3 tablespoons oil (something with a high smoke point) and arrange potstickers closely together, as many as you can fit on the bottom of the pan.

Place over high heat and fry the potstickers for about 3 minutes, then add 1/2 cup of water and cover. Boil until all the water has evaporated, then reduce heat to medium-low and uncover. Continue cooking an additional 2-3 minutes, then remove from pan. Serve fried-side up, with sauce of your choice on the side.

I couldn't find any soy sauce handy at the house (I was cooking at my brother's place without him there, and didn't want to venture off to the grocery) so I just had some fish cocktail sauce on the side. The potstickers can be filled with any ingredients of your liking, and many other cooks at the Daring Kitchen have made these, so make sure you check them out. You're sure to find a filling to your liking.

Ricotta Gnocchi with Pesto

This month welcomes the birth of the Daring Cooks group. Linked with Daring Bakers, Daring Cooks is very much the same premise, but everyone cooks a specific meal rather than baking (which usually focuses on dessert). The selection this month was ricotto gnocchi, from Judy Rodgers' cookbook, The Zuni Café Cookbook. It didn't turn out quite as photographic as I had hoped, but it offered itself as a pleasantly light and delicious meal.

There's a nice Italian restaurant not too far from my house, and I've often ordered their gnocchi with pesto sauce. It's such a wonderful combination that I decided I'd try it out on my own. This gnocchi is different from the standard sort (using potatoes is standard, from what I've seen at least) in that it uses ricotta as the base, but I still figured the pairing would go well together. As far as the process went of actually cooking the formed gnocchi, I found that letting the gnocchi sit in the refrigerator for 24 hours really helped them hold their form. I was having trouble with them breaking apart, even after adding extra eggs and letting it sit for an hour or so in the refrigerator.

Gnocchi:
16 ounces fresh ricotta cheese
2 large cold eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
1 heavy pinch of ground nutmeg
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1/4 teaspoon salt
Flour to form the gnocchi

At least a day before you want to cook the gnocchi, place the ricotta cheese over a cheesecloth, placed into a wire mesh sieve, suspended over a bowl to catch the moisture. This will drain off a lot of the excess water that's held inside the cheese. If you skip this step, your gnocchi will fall apart easily while cooking. Once the water has been wicked away (about 24 hours in the refrigerator), place into a food processor and pulse a few times until smooth. Add the eggs, butter, nutmeg, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and salt. Pulse until everything is combined and smooth. Fill a shallow bowl with flour, and drop 2-3 teaspoons of batter into it at a time. Very gently roll it and shape it until it has an even coating of flour, then drop into a boiling pot of water. Once the gnocchi begins to float, boil for an additional 5 minutes, then gently remove from the water bath and set aside to cool. Do a practice gnocchi first, then if it holds up to the strain of boiling and removal, continue to cook gnocchi 5-6 at a time, such that the pot doesn't become overcrowded. If the gnocchi falls apart, try to add an extra egg white or allow the batter to firm up in the refrigerator. Once gnocchi are cooked, while still hot, serve with sauce of your choice.


Basic pesto sauce:
4 cups Italian (sweet) basil
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup pine nuts
2 garlic cloves
1/3 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano
1 teaspoon salt

In a food processor, process the basil until finely chopped. Scrape down the sides as needed. Add the olive oil, pine nuts, garlic cloves, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and salt. Pulse until sauce comes together - it will be thick. Serve on top of the hot ricotto gnocchi.

I ended up keeping a lot of this for myself, but I was able to share a bit of it with a couple people, and the reviews were actually better than I had expected. I thought that I may have over-done it with the amount of Parmigiano-Reggiano, being in both the gnocchi and in the sauce, but it seems that it was a much-welcomed flavor. This first daring cooks challenge was interesting, and I'm looking forward for more to come.