Supermarket frozen dumplings

I was looking up the “O Tasty” brand and found this on Serious Eats

Best frozen dumplings

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Like @Thimes’ suggestion, I am also partial to the local Chinese Spaghetti factory dumplings. I cook them like mini-potstickers, so that the bottom skin gets crispy.

For the non-pan fried kind, if you have an Asian market in your area, I like the Wei-Chuan brand of dumplings (non-soup dumplings). They have quite a number of variety, and I’ve generally found them to be pretty tasty, especially the “hand made” and “Beijing style” lines. I personally have never enjoyed any of the frozen soup dumplings, as they don’t even come close to half-decent soup dumplings you can get at a restaurant.

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Good to know about Hannafords. They definitely have some varieties at HMart. and Super 88 in Allston/Brighton also carries them.

Thimes, the pork and leek are also my favorites.

At the risk of sounding super dumb it looks like French to me. With English above it of course and Chinese on top.
And Product of USA plus in another language. The rest of the mumbo jumbo is bringing up nothing with Babelfish. I can’t distinguish who it’s distributed by in lower corner. Proceed at your own risk but they look good to me.:slightly_smiling_face:

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Thanks! It was the Asian looking characters I was wondering about.240b27967688ed0106907cc7185bc031

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i see. I knew I shouldn’t have gotten involved with this one… Now I know why no one else did.:slightly_smiling_face:

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I can’t actually read 'em, but I do recognize the different writing systems and from left to right, the languages in your later post are Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. It’s also Chinese on the front above the English in the previous post’s photo. I’m pretty sure those are traditional characters, implying a “non-mainland Chinese” target audience, as one might expect from a “Produit des Etats-Unis” :wink:, and fwiw, I assume the French labeling is there to comply with Canadian labeling law…

If no one chimes in with translations here and you can get an equally clear photo of the rest of the Asian language texts, you can try machine-translating them using newocr.com to capture the text and Google and/or Bing Translator to translate them. NewOCR works pretty  well on Asian characters (though not perfectly); the translators, on the other hand, often produce, shall we say interesting   English translations from Asian languages… You might try first searching for a company website and using the translators directly on that, if they don’t have what seem to be side-by-side texts in all the relevant languages…

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Thank you! Just what I needed. I was mostly trying to figure out if they were "gyoza " or…that other one…I think “potstickers”. I’m guessing if they are Chinese letters they are "potstickers ". (I was also wondering if the French was a clue. Never would have guessed the Canadian angle).

Serious Eats about dumplings

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I think you did great!

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I’m not entirely sure, but I think “gyoza” is just Japanese for “potstickers”, and judging by the photo, I think that’s a safe assumption…:wink:

Thank you!
I think so too, at least for the most part, but I think in some cases the wrapper might make a difference. I get the impression it might make a difference in your best options for preparing them as well.

Check out this selection of wrappers


From this old thread;

This store has SO many choices in their frozen section, I’d like to know what to look for next time. This thread has certainly helped.

Thanks everyone!

Yes, that’s a common sight at Asian supermarkets, and I’m fortunate to have not only NYC’s “official” Chinatowns as a resource, but a smaller “outpost” with several grocery stores and a few restaurants within easy walking distance of my apartment (in South Brooklyn).

I think there are probably slight differences between “gyoza” and “potsticker” skins, just as there are slight differences between Japanese and Chinese tofu, and less-slight differences betweenJapanese and Chinese soy sauces. But they’re basically the same idea - kneaded, rolled, wheat-flour based). As you’ve probably noticed, there are a bunch of similar-but-different “dumpling” (and wonton) wrappers, in various shapes and thicknesses, but I think that like the myriad variations in noodles, the differences are more regional than based on distinctly different “types” of dumplings, and to some extent, simply a matter of personal preference (like the thickness of the wrappers). That being said, it’s one of the areas of Asian cuisines I haven’t even tried   to get a complete grasp on, for much the same reason I’ve never bothered to try “master” home pizza-making or even (more than basic) bread baking. “Mastering” them at home would be interesting and fun in theory, but with only so many hours in the day, and a strong suspicion that mine would never be as good as the better examples I can get at restuarants, bakeries, and some grocery stores, it’s just not worth the effort to me…:wink:

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Understood!

In addition to the fact that I seem to enjoy obsessing about minutiae, it is way easier for me to get to this store than it is to get to good dumplings (among other things.)

I would LOVE to master this store!

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I’m cooking them like gyoza. Water and oil; crisping in oil after steaming.


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Do you mean the characters on the package of your dumplings? They are pork potstickers. They read “zhu rou guo tie” (Mandarin Chinese pronunciation). Guo tie is a literal translation for potstickers, and usually mean a thicker skin suitable for pan frying. Zhu rou is pork.

Gyoza I believe is usually written with the characters that read as “jiao zi” (Mandarin again), which is a general term for dumplings.

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Looks good,
The steam - fry or potsticker technique is the classic method for Japanese gyoza or Chinese guo tie. Essentially, you fry the frozen dumplings, then add water to the pan and cover them to steam through, then fry them again once the water evaporates. This double- frying creates an extra-crisp bottom crust

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Thanks so much!

Thank you!

I usually get the round because it pleats better as well as prefer the white ones rather than the yellow ones as they seem to be thinner. The Northern style is a little bit thicker than the Shanghai style as it is better suited for Sheng Jian bad which contains broth so that when. you bite into the dumpling, the broth oozes out!

生煎包 “sheng jian bao” (A Meatball+Broth Bun) pan-fried in a wide pan, golden-crispy bottom. Southern Yangtze style. Commonly referred to as “Shanghai-style” dumplings. T;/p"

For spring rolls, I do not use these products . My preference as I had explained before in answer to you on Jan 2019, if you remember is the Simex individually separated wrappers. THERE ARE 2 KINDS OF SIMEX LUMPIA WRAPPER. THE INDIVIDUALLY SEPARATED ONES HAS A PARCHMENT PAPER BETWEEN EACH SHEET WHICH WOULD SAVE YOU AT LEAST AN HOUR TO SEPARATE PER BOX. I used this for spring rolls, be it fresh as most Chinese prefer, or pan fried. I also like it for a dessert called Turon esp if the plantains are ripe and split longitudionally and adding coconut string between the plantan, then pan fried.
https://www.heb.com/product-detail/simex-individually-lumpia-wrapper/1893571

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The parchment papers are great!