I got the idea for sweet potato potstickers when I was browsing all my favorite food blogs and came across lentil potstickers. The author intelligently pointed out that you can put whatever you want in a potsticker; there's no need to limit yourself to meat or lentils. This is one of those ideas that sounds so elementary when you hear someone else state it, but something you'd never think of yourself. At least... I would have taken a long time to realize it (with the potential for never figuring it out). I found out there are actually recipes for squash potstickers. Squash, sweet potatoes, they're all orange and delicious. Here's how I made some yummy sweet potato potstickers! They are vegetarian, but they could be made vegan if you buy or make vegan wonton wrappers.
Start off by securing a two medium sized sweet potatoes. Wash, rinse, peel, and chop them into small cubes. Place them in a medium-sized pot of water and turn the heat to high. Once the water begins to boil, turn the heat down and allow the potatoes to simmer for a few minutes. You'll know when they're done when you can poke them easily with a fork. For me, this was after about five minutes.
Turn off the stovetop, drain the hot water from the spuds, and find your soy sauce, ginger powder, salt, sweetener and green onions. Wash three or four green onions, chop them, and throw them in on top of the sweet potatoes. Add 1/4 teaspoon of salt, 2-3 teaspoons of ginger powder, and a tablespoon of soy sauce. I added a teaspoon of agave to sweeten it, but you could use brown sugar and I bet it would work fine. Now, mash mash mash and then taste a small bit. Add more ginger powder, sugar, or salt to meet your preferences.
If you have Thanksgiving guests who are sitting in the living room because the kitchen is too crowded, then you can put them to work now. No particular talent is needed for this next step. Give your guests a plate (to use as a surface for assembly), a tray (to hold all the completed potstickers), and a small bowl of water. Your guests should put about two teaspoons of the mashed mixture into the center of the wonton wrapper. Don't put in too much filling, or else your potsticker will be hard to close or will open while you cook it!
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| Here are the potstickers before they are cooked. Note that the filling is in the interior of the potsticker and there is low risk that it will come out. The edges are tightly sealed with a little bit of water to keep the potstickers closed. |
Instruct your guests to dip a single finger into the water and trace two adjacent edges of the wonton wrapper with the wet finger. This will help the wonton to stick to itself. If you put too little or too much, it won't stay closed (this is kind of like how you wouldn't drool all over an envelope in order to seal it. It'd just get soggy and then the recipient would be grossed out). Press the two wet edges to the two dry edges to make an isosceles triangle. Squeeze the edges so that the potsticker seals while making sure all the filling stays in the interior. You can make your potstickers pretty by wrinkling one edge as you press it to the other edge, or you can just squeeze the two edges together and make them plain. I usually make them into plain triangles, but Steve likes them ridge-y and pretty (which is weird because usually I care more about appearances than he does).
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| There is a ridge-y one in the center. See how there are little "wrinkles" or ridges? They're kind of pretty, but you can make the edges flat to improve your potsticker-making speed. |
When appetizer time comes, get a nonstick frying pan with a lid. Put at most a tablespoon of oil into the pan and heat on medium. When the oil is hot, place about ten potstickers into the pan (this will depend on how large your pan is). Let the bottoms crisp up and become bronze, but don't let them burn! As counter-intuitive as it may seem, you do not want your potstickers to stick to the pan. Avoid this sticky situation by gently shaking the pan. Once the bottoms are golden, flip your potstickers over. Get 1/3 cup of water and hold your lid in front of the pan to shield yourself from the oil. Carefully pour the water into the pan.
You know how oil and water don't mix when they're both room temperature? They hate each other even more when the oil is hot, which means that hot oil goes flying (hence the lid/shield). As soon as the water is in the pan, cover the pan with the lid. Let the potstickers steam for a couple minutes. You may want to shake the pan once or twice just to make sure nothing gets too crispy. After two or three minutes, the oil-water feud will be calming down and you'll feel safe to uncover the potstickers. Use a spatula or chopsticks or whatever to get the potstickers out.
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| Sorry this picture is ugly; my apartment has unattractive lighting! By the time I get cooking, the natural light has disappeared (I don't like that winter means it's dark at 4 o'clock) |
Put the potstickers on a pretty plate if you like your guests or on an ugly plate if you don't care what they think. Bring out the potstickers with some napkins. Eat a couple, then go make the rest of the potstickers (this recipe makes about 40). Eat them plain or dip them into dumpling sauce. If you don't have dumpling sauce, you can give them soy sauce.
I think these would be a great appetizer. I know I hate the four or five hours when the turkey smells delicious but is still cooking. It's practically torture. I don't want to eat lame food because I don't want to fill up before the feast, but the wafts of turkey goodness make me so hungry. These potstickers seem like a good compromise. Also, if you have a vegetarian or vegan guest, you can make these in order to bulk up their Thanksgiving dinner.
Additionally, you can save yourself time by making multiple things at once. You can peel, chop, and boil a huge pot of potatoes. Then, set some of the mashed sweet potatoes aside to make sweet potato biscuits and some for these potstickers, then serve the rest simply as a side dish instead of regular mashed potatoes. I'd suggest adding some brown sugar, butter, and a little salt before serving the mashed sweet potatoes.
To make this, you need:
- Wonton wrappers
- Two medium-sized sweet potatoes (to make about 40 potstickers)
- Green onions (aka scallions aka scalliwags)
- Ginger
- Soy sauce
- Salt
- Sugar or agave or some other sweetener