Shrimp and turkey pot stickers....and oh yeah, welcome!

So I kept thinking about starting one of these food blogs after finding so many that I really enjoyed reading, but here I am actually doing it. And here is my inaugural post and first recipe. Now, the reason that I enjoy food blogs is that they are written by real folks toiling away in their home kitchen, learning by trial and error.  The authors tend to give a lot of detail as to how they prepared the dish (including when things go horribly wrong and how they fixed the problem!) and they also tend to have beautiful professional looking photographs accompanying their postings.

I do tend to be a wordy person and I do photograph my cooking results but at least for now I'll be lacking in the fancy-pants photograph side of things.  Hey, I'm learning.



So my inspiration for making these pot stickers came from the fact that one of my Cooking Light cookbooks has an Italian-inspired mushroom won ton recipe in it that I need to try.  In looking at this recipe again, I kept thinking that I had seen a more Asian flavored ground turkey won ton recipe somewhere in the book, but of course I couldn't find it, in that book, or in any other place.  So, I turned to my best friend, Google, and saw what I could come up with.  I ended up finding a great shrimp pot sticker recipe on yet another gorgeous food blog (now bookmarked!).  They had in turn found this recipe from Martha Stewart's website. This blog was especially helpful in showing how to properly fold the wonton wrappers for pot stickers.

Well, given that my original goal was to make ground turkey pot stickers and the fact that I had a lot of bok choy in my fridge to use up, I've slightly altered the recipe that they presented.  So, here's my version, fully acknowledging that my inspiration came from here.



Shrimp and turkey pot stickers
1/4 pound small shrimp, shelled, de-tailed, and deveined
1/3 pound ground turkey (I used 93% lean, which I find to be the best kind)
1 large egg white (I used Egg Beaters instead)
1 teaspoon Sriracha 
1 1/2 teaspoons sesame oil
2 teaspoons low-sodium soy sauce
1 medium carrot (I used about 12 baby carrot sticks, as it's what I had. I chopped them into thirds)
1 1/2 cups bok choy, chopped into thirds
1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger (I used jarred fresh ginger cuz I'm lazy)
2 scallions, chopped
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 onion, chopped into quarters
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 package 3-inch round Chinese dumpling wrappers (available at large
supermarkets) (I was unable to find the round ones and just used square won ton wrappers)
2 tablespoons olive oil

For the dipping sauce:
1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon rice-wine vinegar
1 scallion, sliced
Sriracha, to taste.  I added about 1/2 teaspoon. Add more if you want it spicier.

In the bowl of a food processor, combine shrimp, turkey egg white, carrot, bok choy, onion, garlic, ginger Sriracha, salt, pepper, sesame oil, and soy sauce. Purée until all the chunkier items (like the carrots, shrimp, and onion) are broken down completely and there are no big chunks.

Get out the won ton wrappers you want to use and keep them in between some damp paper towels.  Re-cover the stack as you take each one. 

Place about 1 teaspoon of filling in the middle of the won ton wrapper. Moisten two edges with some egg (I used Egg Beaters).  Fold the wrapper over to make a triangle and seal all the edges.  Then, sit the wrapper upright and start pinching/pleating around where you sealed it.  These pictures helped me out greatly.  Get a great big dinner plate out and moisten some more paper towels.  As you finish shaping each pot sticker, gently place it underneath the moist paper towels on the plate.  The amount of filling you add is very important: if you add too much filling, it oozes out of the seam when you try to pinch it shut, but if you add too little you've got a pot sticker with all this won ton dough and a sad, too-small pocket of tasty filling.

In a small serving bowl, whisk together ingredients for dipping sauce.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a non-stick pan over medium heat until hot.  Carefully add half your pot stickers to the pan and cook until the bottoms are golden brown. This took 2-3 minutes for me.  I carefully would lift a pot sticker to see how brown he was. 

Then, add about a cup of hot water to the pan and cover.  Let it cook 5 minutes.  Take the lid off and let it cook about another 5 minutes, or until all the water has evaporated and the pot stickers start to crisp up a bit on the bottom again.  Carefully remove with a spatula and eat with the dipping sauce!  (You can also keep them warm in an oven if you want to eat all batches of the pot stickers at once).  Then, carefully clean out your pan with a paper towel and repeat this process with the other half of your pot stickers.

Here's a photo of the finished product.  Not the highest quality photo, but you get the idea (hopefully).

And this was only half of the pot stickers I made!

I should also add that this recipe makes quite a lot of pot stickers.  After assembling enough pot stickers to fill my pan twice, I was getting tired of the assembly process and figured we had enough anyway.  So, I had enough filling leftover to make 8 "meatballs" that I then baked in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes.  We dipped these into the dipping sauce as well and it was delicious too.  Just an idea if you get tired like me. :)