Barbecue Pork Sandwiches

I've been experimenting with barbecue sauce recipes, and this one from Simply Recipes is my current favorite.  I cooked it for about and hour then pureed it in the food processor.  The barbecue sauce comes together pretty quickly, but this batch took awhile, because I decided to make homemade ketchup the same day.  I used all the tomatoes for the ketchup, then I remembered I was supposed to same some for the barbecue sauce.  So I had to finish the ketchup first, then make the sauce.

The pork is easy - season a pork shoulder with salt and pepper, add some dried hot peppers, garlic, and onions if you're feeling spicy, and cook in a slow cooker on low overnight, or 8-12 hours.  Cool, then discard fat and shred the meat.  If I'm feeling very motivated, I might sear the pork on all sides in a Dutch oven before slow cooking, but this involves and extra cleaning step, so it isn't a necessity.

Pot Stickers

I love potstickers.  They're a pain to make, but so worth it.  The whole house smells like a really good Asian restaurant, and I always eat way more than I should.

I don't have a recipe, but they're easy - take a pound of ground pork, mix it with some scallions, garlic, ginger, finely chopped broccoli, carrot, cabbage - whatever you want, just make all the bits small.  Stir in some soy sauce, chili-garlic sauce, oyster sauce, maybe some rice wine, plus a little sugar, maybe 1 tsp.

Search desperately for round wonton wrappers.  When you can only find square ones, use a round biscuit cutter to approximate a circle.

Watch this video to learn how to fill the potstickers and make that fancy fold around the edges.  Don't fill yours as full as the ones in the video until you get the hang of it.  Keep the unused wrappers and the finished dumplings covered with a damp towel.

Heat a few tablespoons of vegetable oil in a large, flat bottomed skillet until shimmering.  Add the potstickers and cook until golden brown.  Add water or chicken stock to come halfway up the dumplings.  Cover and lower the heat, simmering for 10 minutes.  Remove the lid, turn the heat up, and cook until the liquid evaporates.  Remove potstickers and add oil for another batch if needed.

Serve with dipping sauce.  Experiment.  There are lots of recipes out there.  I like a thinner sauce.  Okay, here's one: mix together 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 tablespoon seasoned rice vinegar, 1 tablespoon chili-garlic sauce, 1 tablespoon grated ginger, and 1 thinly sliced scallion top.