Recipe:: Pork Potstickers

This is a dish I've never made before but found to be a lot of fun to make and quite easy despite being a little time intensive. While it's not a whip-it-up-in-20-min meal, you can make a ton of them at once and freeze them to use for several meals or make them ahead of time for entertaining so they do prove to be time saving with some planning. They are delicious and totally worth the effort!

We enjoyed our first meal of Pork Potstickers paired with yummy Warm Asian-Style Quinoa (recipe found at this link) and it was excellent! Even my husband ate every last bite. We froze the extra Potstickers, but since they were so good we heated them up and ate them again the next day. AND we had them again a few days later with friends. We couldn't get enough of them! My adapted recipe is below. I actually made less filling than the original recipe calls for and it still yielded about 50 Potstickers.

Many thanks to Yumsugar for the original Potsticker recipe and wonderful photos and instructions. Definitely check out the Yumsugar post for help in making these your first time. Enjoy!

Pork Potstickers
Ingredients:
1 medium (or 1/2 a large) head of cabbage

1/4 cup salt (*for draining water from cabbage not the recipe*)

1 pound ground pork
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup light soy sauce
1-2 packs of round Gyoza Skin (aka wonton wrappers. Round is best, but you can use square. Find them in the fresh or frozen sections of most grocery stores.)
3-4 TBSP extra-virgin olive oil

Here's how I made them:
1. Shred cabbage using a cheese grater into a large bowl or strainer. Use the smallest grater you have because the smaller the pieces the better. A food processor also works well.
2. Cover cabbage with 1/4 cup salt and let sit for up to half an hour to draw the water out of the cabbage. You'll be surprised how much water drains out!
3. If you are using a bowl, drain the excess water from the bowl and then squeeze a handful of cabbage at a time to remove the excess water. It should be like squeezing a sponge - that's how you'll know it's ready.
4. Mix your drained cabbage with the ground pork, minced garlic and soy sauce.
5. On a clean surface, take one wonton skin at a time and wet half of the edge. Place a tablespoon or smaller scoop of filling into the middle.
6. Watch this fantastic video on how to seal the edge of the potsticker from Yumsugar.

7. Cover large non-stick pan with enough olive oil to coat the surface and heat on medium heat until hot. Place potstickets standing up in pan so that they aren't overly crowded. They can touch but shouldn't be smooshed.
8. Once all the potstickers are set in the pan, pour 1/4 cup water into the bottom of the pan, cover and cook for 4 minutes. The water will be sizzling and steaming to cook the insides of the potstickers.
9. After 4 minutes, add another 1/4 cup of water, cover and cook for 2 minutes.
10. After the 2 minutes, remove the lid, cook off excess water and cook for 1-3 more minutes. We liked ours crispy so we cooked the bottoms a little longer. Check the bottom of one of the potstickets from the center of the pan to see if they are done since this is where they cook a little faster.
11. Serve with dipping sauce.

Potsticker Dipping Sauce
Ingredients:
2 garlic cloves, minced
1-2 tsp ginger, minced
1/2 cup light soy sauce
1 tsp crushed red pepper
2 scallions, chopped

Here's how I made it:
1. Mince your fresh garlic or ginger if not already from a jar. (We prefer fresh because it's cheep and I mince my own in batches and store covered in olive oil in the fridge for later use.)
2. Use enough soy sauce to cover minced ingredients.
3. Add crushed red pepper to taste. We like things spicy.
4. Add some scallions for extra flavor.