It’s been several months since I’ve taken part in a “Waiter There’s Something in my…” challenge. So, it was with great excitement that I saw that this month’s theme was dumplings. Who doesn’t love dumplings?!? And I have tons of variations on the theme!… Then I read the rules more closely… oh my… the definition of dumpling was being taken into a whole new direction than the one my mind had been heading in…

* Any kind of dough that is wrapped around a filling of some sort (fruit, meat, vegetable, etc) and rolled into dumplings, then cooked.
* Dumplings can be boiled, steamed or baked: not fried.
* Dumplings can be refined after cooking by dusting with sugar, rolling in crumbs, smothering in butter and herbs, etc
* Your dumpling MUST have a filling.

Oh dear… what was I gonna do now? Only one thing jumped out to me, pot stickers! Except I’d never made them before. This would be mighty interesting I read several recipes to get an idea of the general technique and then dove right in!

Mom had some leftover stir fried vegetables in the fridge that I thought would make the perfect basis for my filling. I bulked it up with 1 diced carrot, 1 tablespoon of diced fresh ginger, 1 chopped garlic clove and a heaping tablespoon of Chinese chili garlic paste (man I love that stuff!)

After stirfrying everything together on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes I moved the pan off the stove and turned my attention to the wanton skins.

Working with 4 at a time I placed a little less than a tablespoon of filling onto each skin and folded them in half, sealing the edges with water. Not all sealed properly, but most survived this phase

With a huge pot of salted water already boiling I dumped ten at a time into the water and boiled them for 5 minutes. A few opened up (probably those that didn’t seal properly to begin with) but most made it through this stage, sealed, slippery and shiny!

So yum! I really had to restrain myself from eating them at this point, as there was still one more step…

Pan-frying until golden brown and crunchy on both sides

In between all the boiling and frying I assembled the dipping sauce by combining 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 2 tablespoons water, 2 teaspoons rice vinegar, 1 heaping teaspoon chili garlic paste and 1 teaspoon sugar.

Once everything was done I was tired and frustrated and wondered if I would ever be willing go through all this stress again. Then I took one bite of a still-hot potsticker that had been dipped in sauce, and man oh man oh man… I’ll leave the rest to your imagination