Broccoli Potstickers

I recently realized that my cravings aren't all about the foods themselves but about the fun I have eating them.  Potstickers are both fun to make and fun to eat, especially if I have chopsticks (which I didn't).  I also realized that with certain foods I care more about the flavor than whether its chicken or shrimp or vegetarian.  I originally made these Potstickers with Chicken and Broccoli (triangles) then decided to make plain broccoli ones (rectangles).  

I surprisingly loved the plain broccoli ones better, they held the sauce I made better and protein really changed the flavor and texture a lot. I started these by making a broccoli recipe I've been using for over ten years, it really simple and tasty.  The recipe is primarily ginger and soy but today I omitted the soy in case I wanted to use soy sauce as a dipping sauce after they cooked, didn't want it to be too salty.

So I started by sauteing garlic and ginger in sesame oil, 

after a couple minutes I added some sugar, Chinese five spice and crushed red pepper to make a paste over low/medium heat...

I then added some hoisin sauce, oyster sauce and chopped broccoli.  Although I chopped it before cooking it I still needed to chop it again after, the larger pieces of the stem were tearing through the wonton wrappers.

Whenever using wonton wrappers I try to work quickly and use only a few at a time because the air exposure hardens them.

You'll have to test out a few to figure how much filling is enough, also the rectangle shape is harder to keep closed that the triangle, so you may need to improvise.  Truth is potstickers should be made with the round wrappers, but I already bought squares and didn't want to be wasteful and cut circle out.

It's better to moisten the edges with water before filling, but they dry too quickly so I do it after filling, then close and cook, the sooner the better.  

If I'm doing a lot at once I close them up and put them in an airtight container in the fridge as I go along until I'm ready to cook them.  These tips are good for pretty much anything you do with these wrappers.

Here comes the challenging part, for me at least.  Most of the directions I found involved a two step cooking process, which I modified (you can tell by my finished product).

So first you heat enough canola/veg oil to fill the bottom of a frying pan.

Brown the potstickers in the oil, time depends on how hot your pan is, when its the color you want you're supposed to add water to the pan and cover for a few minutes.

Then you flip them in the water and let the opposite side cook for the same amount of time. 

The problems I had were that the water naturally made the oil splash all over the place so I had to decrease the amount of oil drastically for the second batch, and potstickers are actually sticky, so once they start cooking they need to be kept apart (especially when you plate them).

Also, I utilized the pan's cover to put the water in to (1) make the covering process quicker and (2) avoid getting burned. (scared-y cat trick)

By the last batch I real wasn't paying much attention because they smelled so good that I was already eating (just the ones that ripped open) LOL

Yummy Broccoli filling, I'm making these again for sure, maybe with carrots and spinach.  I ate these all day, until they were just a memory, now I'm hungry again, #greedygirlproblems

Thanks for Reading!!