Mix It Up Monday: Gluten Free Potstickers and Baked Pork Rice Paper Rolls

One of the things we missed the most when we switched to gluten free life is Chinese dumplings or potstickers.  The ones we love are absolutely a labor OF love, backbreaking and time consuming and SO WORTH IT.  Given the easy tearing nature of gluten free dough, I thought that they were out of our reach.  Then I found The Gloriously Gluten Free Cookbook, which I bought expressly because there was a recipe for potstickers listed in the index (pg. 114).  It’s taken me months to get around to trying it.

I had a few issues with this recipe.  For one, it calls for SIX EGGS in only 24 dumpling wrappers.  That’s ludicrous.  I found the dough incredibly difficult to roll out, and of course it didn’t really stretch.  Once I finally got the dumplings wrapped (and I used my original filling from the recipe linked above), which only used half the filling btw, I followed the cookbook’s advice for how to cook them.  Promptly burned the entire first batch (about half the dumplings).  Went back to cooking them the way that I cooked my regular dumplings and those turned out better.  The wrappers themselves were a little bit gummy and thick, not unpalatable but not at all what I associate with dumplings.

I’m thinking I’ll be continuing the hunt for a viable gluten free dumpling wrapper, but this was enough to give me hope that it CAN BE DONE!

Now, as I said, I had the other half of the filling remaining to do SOMETHING with.  So for lunch the next day, I chopped another 3 scallions, finely diced another 3 leaves and stalks of bok choy, added another teaspoon of tamari and a 1/2 teaspoon fresh ginger, and sauteed the pork until cooked through.  Then I pulled out the package of rice paper wrappers I bought FOREVER ago and forgot about, soaked them according to package directions and filled each one with 1/3 cup of filling and rolled them.  I brushed them all with oil and baked them at 425 for 20 minutes.  They were quite tasty as a gluten free alternative to egg rolls, though definitely flimsier.  They kind of fell apart when we ate them, but it was still a tasty and simple use for the remaining filling.

This steel magnolia is the poster child for successfully Doing All the Things, smart phone in one hand, sword in the other. Author of action-packed PR/UF for adults and teens. You can catch up with her at Pots and Plots, her blog, Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads.