Xuancheng Potstickers 宣城锅贴
Xuancheng Potstickers is featured among the local specialties of Anhui.
Xuancheng Potstickers (宣城锅贴) are crescent-shaped, pan-fried dumplings eaten for breakfast in Xuancheng (宣城), Anhui. They are also called guotie bao (锅贴包); potsticker shops line streets and lanes across the city, and people get up early to queue at them.
How it is made
The dough is flour and water, and the filling is usually pork, with fresh vegetables that change with the season. At one shop in the Xilin (西林) residential quarter, opened in the early 1990s, five cooks worked by hand each morning in 2018, rolling the wrappers on the spot and filling and shaping them. The shop made two doughs every day: a leavened one that is softer and more yielding, and an unleavened one with more bite.
The dumplings are set in neat rows in a flat pan heated over a wood fire, sprinkled evenly with water and covered. After two or three minutes they are sprinkled again, the round is repeated twice, and finally sesame oil is poured over and they fry until cooked through.
Flavour and texture
Only the base is fried. It comes out golden and crisp while the top stays soft and chewy, so a bite combines a crunchy edge and fried bottom with a thin, soft wrapper and a tender, juicy filling. In the mouth the skin is both crisp and soft and the filling both melting and short.
How it is eaten
A Xuancheng breakfast is a few golden potstickers with a little chilli sauce and a bowl of soy milk or rice porridge. At the Xilin shop they are eaten hot, dipped in aromatic vinegar with the house chilli sauce, sometimes with a bowl of kelp soup. The city has several long-established potsticker shops, each with its own way of making them.
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Chuzhou Potstickers 滁州锅贴 →
Chuzhou's potstickers share the name; Xuancheng's are a breakfast item with a leavened or unleavened wrapper, eaten with chilli sauce and soy milk or rice porridge.
