Taiwan Crispy Pot Sticker Cook Off and My Favorite Dumpling Dipping Sauce

When I was in Taiwan I was totally in love with a Restaurant Chain called 四海龙 (4 Seas Dragon).
And it was not long, no longer than a week, before I came home that I couldn't go a day longer with out Pot stickers and made my first attempt at recreating the 4 Seas Dragons Pot stickers. My first attempt was terrible, just let me tell you, but none the less my family just gobbled them up and still to this day love pot stickers. It has now been about 8 Years of obsessively :) trying to recreated those pot stickers.
Eight years ago I stood in front of 四海龙 very attentively watching the employee cook pot stickers. I noticed that the water he poured over the dumplings was a milky color. I asked him what was in the water and he answered something but at the time my Chinese cooking vocabulary was almost nilch so it just went over my head. I have been mixing cornstarch with water for the past eight years with pretty good results but recently I have been pondering over what he said to me. It was definitely either 面粉 mian fen (wheat flour) or 米粉mi fen (rice flour).
So today I decided to have a pot sticker cook off and compare the results of cornstarch, wheat flour or rice flour. The proportions of all three are 5 grams (about 1/2 Tbsp.) mixed with 100 ml (1/2 cup) water. I have recipes for pork and cabbage and leek and egg dumplings if you want a filling idea. I almost never make my own skins anymore, I just buy dumpling skins at the local Asian market. Won ton skins don't work very well at all for these so if you can find dumpling skins I definitely recommend using those.

Let the games begin

Cornstarch. Quite nice but compared to the latter two a harder mouth feel.

 Wheat Flour. Perfect mouth feel, very light and very crispy.

Rice Flour. Almost can't tell the difference between the Wheat flour and Rice.

Here is the whole process of cooking them

Mix 5 ml flour with 100 ml water for a large frying pan (triple these amounts if using a pot sticker pan like I am using in the pictures) and stir well to dissolve. Heat a pan over medium heat. Then (this is so crucial) spray a nonstick cooking spray and then swirl 1/2 Tbsp. oil around the pan. Add dumplings and cook until bottoms are golden brown. Next pour in the flour water and cover for 3-6 minutes or until you hear the sound coming from the pan change to a frying sound. Remove the lid drizzle with a little rice vinegar or sesame oil (optional) .

Allow it to continue to cook until the pan is completely dry. And then wait for the crispy layer on the bottom of the pan brown and the edges pull away from the pan. If you have forget the non-stick cooking spray (I have done this before) it won't do peel itself away.

My Favorite Dumpling Dipping Sauce

1/4 cup thick soy sauce (if you can't find it regular works fine)

2 Tbsp. Rice Vinegar

1 tsp. sugar

1 clove garlic, minced

1 pinch of ground coriander

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

a few drop hot chili oil (optional)

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