spring herb potstickers

For me?  How lovely, thank you.

For you.

Don’t overlook spring herbs in your potstickers.  You can fill them with a tofu-egg mixture or ground pork as a base, either way works. But be sure to add a range of green things growing in the garden.  I used fennel fronds, parsley, chives, and overwintered garlic and shallot for these.  My friend’s cook and nanny, an older woman from northern China, uses the little buds of wild fennel heads that spring up in overgrown lots all over the Bay Area.  I think that’s a fine idea.

I don’t bother making my own potsticker skins, since I’m usually just making these for myself, but you might want to try them, especially since the skins tend to have preservatives and such.

Spring Herb Potsticker Filling

• 1/2 lb. ground pork (substitute 1/2 cake regular (firm) tofu, drained well of water, and one beaten egg)
• handful of chives, chopped
• handful of parsley, chopped
• handful of spring fennel fronds or fennel buds
• 1 medium shallot, chopped finely
• 1 clove garlic, chopped finely
• 1/2 t. salt
• sprinkle of fennel seed
• 1 t. corn starch

Mix together all ingredients for potsticker filling.  Proceed according to my recipe for kale potstickers with videos to show how to fold and steam the little guys.

Serves — let’s be realistic — 2.  But I suppose you could stretch it out to 4.