Peking Ravioli (Boston Pan-Fried Pork Dumplings)
Joyce Chen's chiao-tzu: homemade wrappers around pork and salted napa cabbage with soy, sherry and sesame oil, steamed and fried in concentric rings, flipped out golden side up and dipped in soy sauce and rice vinegar.
Joyce Chen was born in Beijing in 1917, left Shanghai in April 1949 and settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts). In 1958 she opened the Joyce Chen Restaurant at 617 Concord Avenue, where, her son says, she also pioneered the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. On the menu she called potstickers "Peking ravioli." WGBH says she coined the name to appeal to her first restaurant's large Italian clientele, and Wikipedia says the name was sometimes shortened to "Ravs."
Chen took the dish to television in 1967 with Joyce Chen Cooks, taped on the same WGBH set as Julia Child's The French Chef, and the earliest print citation Barry Popik found for the name is her own Boston Globe column, "Peking Ravioli, Chiao-Tzu," on April 9, 1967. This recipe is hers, from a printout she autographed in 1970, transcribed by WGBH. It is the American version of the jiaozi at the top of this hub, with one big change: the pan.
🇺🇸 This one is American
Joyce Chen's chiao-tzu: homemade wrappers around pork and salted napa cabbage with soy, sherry and sesame oil, steamed and fried in concentric rings, flipped out golden side up and dipped in soy sauce and rice vinegar.
🇨🇳 The original
In northern China, jiaozi are pork and napa cabbage dumplings pleated by hand and usually boiled, eaten with black vinegar, especially at Lunar New Year. See the Jiaozi (Boiled Pork and Napa Cabbage Dumplings) recipe.
Why it works the kitchen science
Steam first, brown last
Cold water and a lid cook the raw pork through, and once the water boils off the oil left in the pan browns the bottoms, so the dumplings are juicy on top and crisp underneath.
Squeezing the cabbage
A cup of liquid wrung out of salted cabbage keeps the filling from turning to soup and leaking through the seams.
Step by step
- Step 1
Mix the flour and water and knead 3 to 4 minutes, until smooth. Cover with a damp towel and rest at least 30 minutes; Chen calls this waking up the dough.
- Step 2
Sprinkle the cabbage with 1 tsp salt as you chop it. Squeeze it hard in a clean cloth until about 1 cup of liquid comes out and discard the liquid. Mix the cabbage with the pork, soy sauce, sherry, 1/2 tsp salt, MSG, sugar, oil and sesame oil. Cover and set aside.
- Step 3
Roll the dough into a log, cut it into about 48 pieces and roll each into a 3-inch round. Put a heaping teaspoon of filling in the center, fold it into a half-moon and pinch and rub the edges between your fingers to seal. Keep finished dumplings on a well-floured plate.
- Step 4
Heat an 8- or 9-inch skillet over high heat until very hot, then add 1 tbsp oil. Starting at the outside edge, arrange about 16 dumplings in rings, lightly touching, with two facing each other in the center.
- Step 5
Pour in 1/2 cup cold water, cover at once and cook over medium-high heat 6 to 7 minutes, until the water is gone. Lower the heat and cook, covered, about 2 minutes more, until the bottoms are golden brown and the center of one reads 160°F.
- Step 6
Loosen the dumplings with a spatula. Put a serving plate upside down over the skillet, flip the pan over and shake gently so the dumplings drop out golden side up. Repeat with the rest.
- Step 7
Stir together the soy sauce, rice vinegar and sesame oil and serve the dumplings right away.
Peking Ravioli (Boston Pan-Fried Pork Dumplings)
Serves 4 · about 48 dumplings (three skillets of 16) · 1 hr 45 min total
Dough
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, leveled
- 2/3 cup lukewarm or cold water (plus 1 tbsp if your flour is very dry)
Filling
- 1 lb napa cabbage (Chinese celery cabbage), very finely chopped
- 1 tsp salt, for the cabbage
- 3/4 lb ground pork (or ground beef)
- 1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp dry sherry (or Shaoxing wine)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp MSG (optional)
- 1/2 tsp sugar
- 1 tbsp cooking oil, bacon drippings or melted lard (2 tbsp if the pork is lean)
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
To fry and serve
- 3 tbsp cooking oil (1 tbsp per skillet)
- 1 1/2 cups cold water (1/2 cup per skillet)
- 3 tbsp soy sauce
- 3 tbsp rice vinegar
- 1 tsp toasted sesame oil
Method
- Mix the flour and water and knead 3 to 4 minutes, until smooth. Cover with a damp towel and rest at least 30 minutes; Chen calls this waking up the dough.
- Sprinkle the cabbage with 1 tsp salt as you chop it. Squeeze it hard in a clean cloth until about 1 cup of liquid comes out and discard the liquid. Mix the cabbage with the pork, soy sauce, sherry, 1/2 tsp salt, MSG, sugar, oil and sesame oil. Cover and set aside.
- Roll the dough into a log, cut it into about 48 pieces and roll each into a 3-inch round. Put a heaping teaspoon of filling in the center, fold it into a half-moon and pinch and rub the edges between your fingers to seal. Keep finished dumplings on a well-floured plate.
- Heat an 8- or 9-inch skillet over high heat until very hot, then add 1 tbsp oil. Starting at the outside edge, arrange about 16 dumplings in rings, lightly touching, with two facing each other in the center.
- Pour in 1/2 cup cold water, cover at once and cook over medium-high heat 6 to 7 minutes, until the water is gone. Lower the heat and cook, covered, about 2 minutes more, until the bottoms are golden brown and the center of one reads 160°F.
- Loosen the dumplings with a spatula. Put a serving plate upside down over the skillet, flip the pan over and shake gently so the dumplings drop out golden side up. Repeat with the rest.
- Stir together the soy sauce, rice vinegar and sesame oil and serve the dumplings right away.
Adapted from Joyce Chen's "Chiao-tzu (Peking Ravioli)" as transcribed by Emily Balk, "Joyce Chen's Sweet And Sour Pork And Peking Ravioli", WGBH (February 15, 2018; updated May 1, 2024), from a printout dated March 25, 1970. We follow Chen's amounts (3/4 lb ground pork, 1 lb Chinese celery cabbage salted and squeezed of 1 cup of liquid, 1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp sherry, 1/2 tsp each salt, MSG and sugar, 1 tbsp each oil and sesame oil; 2 cups flour and 2/3 cup water rested 30 minutes) and her kuo-t'ieh method (an 8- or 9-inch skillet, 1 tbsp oil, about 16 dumplings in rings, 1/2 cup cold water, covered 6 to 7 minutes over medium-high heat, then about 2 minutes over lower heat, inverted onto a plate). The dipping sauce is the one Balk served (equal parts soy sauce and rice vinegar with sesame oil); Chen offers vinegar, soy sauce or hot pepper sauce. The yield, servings, round size and 160°F check are ours. wgbh.org. Ingredient list follows the source; the method is in our own words.
All sources (3)
Tips
- To boil them instead, Chen's way: add the dumplings to boiling water, cover and return to a boil, add 1 cup cold water, return to a boil, add another cup, boil once more, then let them stand covered 2 to 3 minutes. Serve the cooking water as soup.
- WGBH's writer found the homemade dough soft and sticky; store-bought round dumpling wrappers are a fine stand-in.
- Make the dumplings a few hours ahead and refrigerate them on a well-floured plate.
- MSG is in Chen's printout; leave it out if you like.
The rules people argue about
What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.
- Joyce Chen invented the name "Peking ravioli." Documented as Wikipedia's and WGBH's account; the 1958 date for the name is Barry Popik's (unsourced), and his earliest print citation is 1967.
- She named them for Italian customers. Disputed: WGBH says so; Wikipedia says she used the name but gives no reason.
- Potsticker is a Chinese word. Documented as an English coinage: Wikipedia credits Buwei Yang Chao's How to Cook and Eat in Chinese (1949 revised edition) with introducing "potsticker."
- Guotie and jiaozi are the same thing. Disputed: Chen calls her pan-fried chiao-tzu kuo-t'ieh; Wikipedia says northern China treats guotie as a separate, elongated, open-ended dumpling (see Jiaozi).
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