InnovAsian Cuisine Potstickers

InnovAsian Cuisine Potstickers Review

InnovAsian Cuisine™ markets several different frozen Asian food products, including a range of dumplings somewhat erroneously referred to as ‘Potstickers’. They can indeed, be cooked and served in the manner of ‘Potstickers’ or ‘Gyoza’, but the manufacturers suggest four different ways to cook them, with microwaving being the preferred method. In this review, the dumplings are tested by cooking them using all four of the methods….

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The Suggested Cooking Methods

As noted, microwaving these dumplings is suggested as the ‘preferred’ method. This is curious since the results can hardly be called ‘Potstickers’, and, as detailed a little further on, microwaving them just does not do a good job.

Pan-frying and Steaming are listed next, and both of these produce decent results, while Boiling (in soup) is added almost as an afterthought.

Microwaving InnovAsian Cuisine Potstickers

Normally, I wouldn’t bother with microwaving this sort of product but the package described this as the ‘preferred’ method and I was curious to see why. I ‘nuked’ them for the recommended 90 seconds (which actually seemed a bit short for frozen dumplings) and they ended up being piping hot all the way through. The wrapper, however was quite tough and chewy in places and I honestly can’t see why one would choose this cooking method over the others.

The filling (described as being seasoned with soy, ginger and garlic) is a little bland, but fairly tasty. The dipping sauce (a ‘Chili-Ponzu’ sauce made by Kikkoman), is actually very good and my only complaint is that there not enough of it. The amount you see above is actually intended the entire package these dumplings came from. This is, to my mind, a bit chintzy…

Boiling InnovAsian Cuisine Potstickers

I boiled these for three minutes (as suggested) and the centers were still a little cold. Five or six minutes would be better, I would say. The wrappers, although just a bit ‘doughy’ were much better than microwaved and even the filling seemed to taste better for some reason. I served these with a sauce I made from chili past, vinegar and a little sesame oil and it went along side very nicely.

Steaming InnovAsian Cuisine Potstickers

These ended up very much like the boiled version except that the recommended cooking time of 8 minutes did, in fact, heat the filling thoroughly. The wrapper was still a little doughy but not unpleasantly so.

Pan-Frying the dumplings ‘Potsticker-style’

This method turned out to be the best (somewhat to my surprise). The wrappers were very nicely al-dente soft and they lost the slightly ‘doughy’ texture and taste that marred the end result with steaming and boiling. The only thing I didn’t like was that the dumplings were just a bit greasy. I think this could be remedied by using half as much oil, decreasing the heat and cooking for a bit longer. Other than that, however, the method worked nicely.

Overall

I don’t expect to ever see store-bought dumplings that match home-made but these InnovAsian Cuisine Potstickers were better than I thought they would be. Microwaving them did not produce a good result, despite this being the ‘preferred’ cookery method, but the remaining cooking processes worked pretty well, especially pan-frying. I like my own dumplings much better but I have been served pot-stickers and boiled dumplings in restaurants that were not as good as these…

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The Sybaritica Product Review Summary