Vegetable Pot Stickers

I was watching a T.V. show on dumplings,  and I started to crave them like crazy. I didn't have any wrappers on hand (I usually do). Isn't that annoying? When you want to cook something and an ingredient is missing. Anyway, on the show they said the dough was only water and flour but didn't share a recipe. I thought, "just water and flour? That should be easy"  Wishful thinking, it's never that easy. After a few attempts driven by the desire to eat pot stickers, I came up with a dough recipe that, in my opinion, is a keeper. 

I am a big fan of pot stickers. They are what I call "a quick dinner fix". I like to make large batches and freeze them in portion bags. There are different ways to cook them. Of course, they are great steamed or pan fried but if you add them to a nice broth, you'll get a beautiful and filling soup or you can simply have them with a salad. 

The first time I made this, I rolled out the dough with a rolling pin. It is a nice workable dough and easy to roll out but if you have a pasta machine, yes, use it! It goes much faster. Either way, it will be good to experiment with this simplified pot sticker recipe, just have fun with it and play around with different fillings. 

Ingredients:

(Recipe makes 20-25 pot stickers)

For the dough

1 cup of flour 

1/3 cup plus 1 tbsp warm water

Combine the flour and water and knead the dough for 10 minutes or until smooth. It might seem that there is not enough water but as you knead, it will come together. Let the dough rest on a lightly greased bowl covered for 45 minutes.  In the meantime, let's work on the filling.

For the filling:

1 cup grated carrots

½ cup Napa cabbage, finely chopped

½ cup chives, chopped

¼ cup red bell pepper, chopped

1 cup shiitake mushrooms, finely chopped

1 ½ tsp fresh ginger, minced 

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp sesame oil

3 tbsp canola oil

Heat the canola oil in a saute pan and add the carrots, cabbage mushrooms, ginger, red bell pepper, chives and soy sauce. Sautee for few minutes or until the veggies are soft. Remove from the heat and drain the liquids off the veggies (I used a sieve). To the drained veggies, add the sesame oil and mix well. Taste and adjust salt if necessary. Let the filling cool.  

For the sauce:

⅓ cup soy sauce
3 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tbsp sesame oil

chopped chives

Mix all the ingredient in a mixing bowl and cover it until ready to use.

To form the pot stickers:

Roll out the dough thin using a rolling pin or a pasta machine (flour your work surface, the dough will be a little sticky) then cut rounds using a 3-inch cutter.  Place a little filling in the middle of a wrapper, Fold the wrapper in half to form a moon shape. Fold and pinch the wrapper together to seal the pot sticker. Once you are done, steam them for 12 minutes. If you want to pan fried them, heat a non-stick pan and coat with canola oil then add some pot stickers. When the bottom of the pot stickers get crispy, add 1/4 cup of water and cover the pan immediately to steam them. Once the water evaporates, they will get crispy again. Serve with the sauce.