Ping Gai Chicken - Laotian "Grilled Chicken Chicken"

What started out as a tragic, waterlogged disaster of a sweet potato dumpling attempt, turned into a triumph we’re calling  “pan-dumplings.” As usual, I did little to no research, so someone may have already invented pan-dumplings, but until I hear from you, I’ll be taking the credit.

I really liked being able to spoon the dough/batter directly into the pan, and cutting out the boiling step made these faster, and we have one less pot to wash. The bacon butter was very nice, but I can think of a dozen sauces that would work with these. If you’re doing it as a main course, anything goes, but as a side dish, I’d keep it simple, as we did here.

Since this was sort of an experiment, I wasn’t paying too close to the exact amounts, but the list below must be pretty close. You can play around with more or less flour, and/or cheese, and cook test dumplings until you lock it in. I wanted something with the taste of roasted sweet potatoes, but with more of a gnocchi-like texture, and I think this was pretty close, which is why I hope you give these pan-dumplings a try soon. Enjoy!

Ingredients for 2 large or 4 smaller portions:

12 ounces cooked sweet potato

1 large egg

1/4 cup goat cheese or cream cheese, plus more to garnish

1/2 cup *self -rising flour

1 teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste

freshly ground black pepper and cayenne to taste

sliced green onions to top

* To make your own SRF, for every cup of all-purpose flour combine 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon fine table salt.