MUZIChinese Matrix
Dumplings · FFET10184
A long pan-fried dumpling, fried in oil and then steamed with a splash of water, with shapes and fillings that vary from place to place.
A plain white porcelain plate holds long potstickers with pale dumpling wrappers and golden pan-fried bases, showing a filling of ground pork, napa cabbage, scallion and egg, with wooden chopsticks resting beside the plate.
Boiled, steamed and pan-fried dumplings, wontons and other filled dough foods.
Guotie is a long dumpling set in an oiled pan and fried, then covered with a splash of water to steam, so the bottom turns crisp. It is linked to Song-dynasty cooking in Kaifeng, but origin stories involving the Song emperor Taizu and Empress Dowager Cixi remain hypotheses without reliable sources. A December 11, 2023 article suggests that guotie probably began in Henan, thrived in the Northern Song capital Bianjing, and later followed the Song court south to Jiankang, today's Nanjing.
Guotie is a long dumpling set in an oiled pan, covered with a little water to steam, and then fried until the water cooks off and the bottom is crisp. Both sealed and open ends occur, with the elongated, open-ended style common in China.1,3,4
No dated text was found. Guotie is linked to the Song dynasty and probably began in Henan, though no year is given. Origin stories about Taizu, Cixi and Mongol nomads lack reliable sources and remain hypotheses.1,2
Guotie is a northern dumpling traditionally linked to Kaifeng, home to the old shop Xingjia Guotie. Today it is made in Nanjing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Qingdao and Taiwan, each with its own shape. Nanjing beef guotie is fried in a shallow pan of rapeseed oil, while Shanghai guotie is shorter and plumper and cooked beside shengjian. Shapes in Tianjin, Qingdao and Taiwan differ too.1,2
Oil the pan, set the dumplings in, add water and cover so they steam, then let the water cook off to leave a crisp bottom. One pork and napa cabbage version is fried, steamed with water for about 3 minutes, then crisped for 1 to 2 minutes. A pork, shrimp and napa cabbage version is steamed for about 8 minutes before frying for 3 to 5 minutes.1,4,5
Origin stories about Taizu, Cixi and Mongol nomads lack reliable sources and remain hypotheses, so no firm reason for guotie's creation can be given.1
Taiwan's guotie chains include Sihai Youlong and Bafang Yunji. The English name potsticker comes from the 1949 edition of a book by Buwei Yang Chao.1,3
Legend has it that after the funeral of his mother, the Song emperor Taizu lost his appetite. He smelled dumplings frying in the palace kitchen, tasted ones fried in an iron pan, and named them guotie. Later chefs refined them at an archery banquet, and the dish reached the public.
Told in: A Kaifeng tale, retold in Chinese Wikipedia with a citation to Baidu. The entry itself says such origin stories lack reliable sources.
Legend has it that Empress Dowager Cixi threw away stale dumplings, and beggars outside the palace wall fried them in a pan, which is how guotie began.
Told in: A Beijing tale, retold in Chinese Wikipedia, which notes that Cixi, Qianlong and Su Dongpo are figures to whom many food stories are attached and calls such claims basically hypotheses.
Grandma Li
This is a simplified home version, not the traditional restaurant method.
This is pork and napa cabbage guotie as I make it at home, in the open-ended style, a simplified home version: I use store-bought round dumpling wrappers and no shrimp in the filling. The amounts mainly follow one recipe by a named author, with 225 g of ground pork, about 3 cups of napa cabbage, half a cup of scallion, 1 egg, and about 3 minutes of steaming after frying. Another comes from a recipe site that names no individual author, is a Taiwanese-style pork and shrimp version, and steams about 8 minutes before frying, which differs, so I did not follow it.
Allergens: egg, soy, wheat, sesame
