Vegetarian Pot Stickers!

Whenever I go out for Thai food, I have to order spring rolls. Wanting to avoid the amount of oil that is required for frying spring rolls, I decided to try and make pot stickers. All of my internet searches led me to one recipe from Alton Brown's show Good Eats. The recipe is courtesey of Ming Tsai.  Katie, one of my oldest friends, was excited to try the recipe with me, so we set up a day just before Christmas to do a little cooking together. It's definitely faster to stuff those gyoza wrappers when you have two people working on them instead of just one!

Ingredients

1 red onion sliced

1 tablespoon minced ginger

1 cup sliced mushrooms

1 cup white cabbage, shredded

1 cup carrots, shredded

1 cup chopped garlic chives or chives

1 teaspoon white pepper

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

1 package gyoza wrappers

You start by sauteing the onions, ginger, and mushrooms. Then add the carrots and chives. When everything has softened up, cool the mixture before adding cilantro and sesame oil.

About 1 tablespoon of the veggie mix goes into each gyoza skin.

Dab some water on the edge of the skin, fold in half, and press sides together. The bottom should stay flat so that they'll stand up during cooking. At this point, the pot stickers can be cooked, or frozen on a cookie sheet and bagged when solid.

I just put a thin coating of oil on the bottom of a saute pan, and let the bottoms of the pot stickers get brown. Then add about 1/4 cup of water, and put a lit on the pot. Steam until done, and the bottoms are again crispy and sticking to the pan.

They were pretty good! I still have few frozen ones, and they're super easy to whip out of the freezer and steam up for a quick lunch! I still need to work on thinking about things as complete meals, because a little bit of added rice and veggies would make them stick with you longer. And I have to say, the ginger totally makes them. It is not a spice I am usually fond of, but without it, they would have been nothing.