One Food, Many Recipes: Chicken Potstickers

Okay. Some spacing! Wheeeeeeee! Hi mom!

In February, I’ve challenged myself and all of you brave enough to attempt it to cook a recipe every week that uses one similar ingredient. My consistent ingredient is going to be rotisserie chicken. Rotisserie chicken is one of the healthiest ways that you can eat chicken – plus it’s delicious! Granted, de-meating it is quite disgusting, but I’ve slowly gotten used to it. For my first recipe, I decided to try making something entirely new: Chicken Potstickers.

I got this recipe out of my current favorite recipe book, Betty Crocker’s Low-fat, Low-cholesterol cooking today. Overall, I think these came together nicely. I’ve had potstickers in restaurants before, but I’ve never tried making them, and Doug has never had potstickers period. You can buy frozen potstickers, but I find that they’re never the same soft consistency as restaurant ones. Well, for a bit of effort, you can have that same delicious softness in your wonton wrappers. Although they were decent, I don’t know that I would make them again. For one, they take quite a bit of effort to make, as you’ll see below. For another, they were a bit bland. I’m sure they could be spiced up by some flavor expert, but they probably also wouldn’t be as low in points (as I mentioned last week, I’m currently in Weight Watchers). But they weren’t bad and if you’re interested in trying something new, I’d recommend them.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 c. fat-free chicken broth
1/2 c. rotisserie chicken, finely chopped (I actually added this into the original recipe)
1/2 c. cabbage, thinly sliced
1/2 c. onion, finely chopped
1/2 c. celery, finely chopped (see what I mean about effort?)
1/2 c. chopped mushrooms
1 tsp. grated gingerroot (I subbed powdered ginger because I didn’t have actual gingerroot)
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp. soy sauce (I just pour until it looks good)
1 tsp. dark sesame oil (same here – I love sesame)
1/2 package wonton skins (about 30)

I also added a little red pepper. You can throw in basically whatever veggies you want.

Directions:
Pour 3/4 of chicken broth into a skillet and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Stir in chicken, cabbage, onion, celery, mushrooms, ginger, and garlic.

Cook 5 to 8 minutes, stirring frequently and adding more broth if vegetables begin to stick (I had WAY extra juice, so I doubt that’ll be  problem), until vegetables are tender; remove from heat. Stir in soy sauce and sesame oil. Remove mixture from skillet. Wipe out skillet.

Brush edges of 1 wonton skin with water. Place 1 heaping teaspoon of chicken/vegetable mixture on center of the skin.

Fold skin in half over filling and pinch edges to seal. Make creases in sealed edges to form pleats on one side of each potsticker. It’s more challenging than it would seem – here’s my pathetic first attempt:

Here’s a better one:

Repeat with remaining wonton skins and chicken/vegetable mixture.

Spray skillet with cooking spray; heat skillet over medium heat. Cook potstickers in skillet, pleated sides up, about 1 minute or until bottoms are light brown.

Add remaining 3/4 of broth. Cover and cook 5 to 8 minutes or until most of liquid is absorbed. Serve and enjoy! I prefer my potstickers with a side of soy sauce, but eat them however you like.

Want some more recipes? See the other participants here!