I get there is an efficiency factor but it doesn’t take more time at home to par boil before frying, it’s just reversing the order. Instead of frying then steaming, you steam then fry and get a much crispier skin on it, so why is this never recommended?
I put them in a pan with some oil and some water, bring to a boil, let the water boil off, then fry to crispen up the outside.
I’m pretty sure this is the instructions on all the packages I’ve looked at.
Yep, this is all the grocery store ones that I’ve seen. Except Trader Joe’s, which goes exact reverse.
The trader Joe’s are how I learned to cook them!
The ones I buy tell you to steam then then fry, so I’m not sure what you’re going on about
Yea, i boil, then fry at home. Steam after frying sounds odd, I wouldn’t try it.
If you want to put the effort into it, google “pan fried dumplings recipe” and compare how many tell you to fry before steaming. I looked through the first 20 and every single one says to fry first. I’ve also bought hundreds of bags of dumplings and never seen instructions to steam first.
The only time I encountered it being the norm was working at a Chinese/Japanese restaurant and from what the chefs said, it’s pretty standard in the industry to par boil then fry as opposed to the traditional way.
Google did something similar to me last week. I was looking up spanakopita, suddenly every recipe I clicked on had egg… Which it just… Spanky pita contains no egg. I asked the AI results and it blamed Americanized versions… But I’m pretty sure all those recipe sharing sites all copy each other and it just looks like “everyone” is doing it.
Side note, I didn’t need a recipe, I was checking for tidier ways to deal with thawed frozen spinach
Tidier than squishing the water out through a strainer?
Cadence Gao last week says he only fries them - lets steam from the filling do the rest of the cooking, with maybe a last minute splash of water to finish the upper dough. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAboqW3oVK4
'course that’s not with frozen dumplings.
The traditional (Japanese) way is to fry then steam. I don’t know whether restaurants often do otherwise.
Yes, what I’m finding is that if you didn’t grow up in an east asian household, you didn’t have the fry before steam routine drilled into you
I do mine like the instructions say and they always come out perfect.
I’ve done both and fry-then-steam is not as sticky, and the water deglazes the pan, if you cook them with anything.
Pierogi though? Boil then fry, they stick like the dickens either way, my husband is the one who makes them - always with kielbasa and sautees them in the sausage pan after boiling them.
