Foodfreak

When I did the first challenge, I already had set my eyes on the recipe for the pork and wakame dumplings, and was planning on making them soon – La Fuji Mama must have read my mind when she chose the recipes for the second Washoku Warriors challenge!

The Washoku Warriors group cooks its way through Washoku: Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen by Elizabeth Andoh, a fabulous book on traditional Japanese home-style cooking.

I knew I was in for a hard time, though – cooking rice and edamame isn’t that hard. Wrapping gyoza, on the other hand… I am kind of decorationally challenged, and I was sure they could never ever look as professional as those La Fuji Mama wraps. (click here for her awesome Nutella Banana Gyoza.)

Still, I wanted to make these with my hands (or rather a standing mixer), and after preparing jiao zi from scratch last year, I opted for La Fuji Mamas recipe for gyoza wrappers – not that different from the jiao zi dough.

The filling was done almost completely in a food processor.

I did have to roll out my wrappers and cut them with a cookie cutter (more like, a juice glass) and then set up shop on my large cutting board, first dividing all the filling, and then starting to wrap’n'pinch.

Cooking rice by going through the process of washing /rinsing and then boiling without opening the lid is something I do automatically when cooking Japanese, again, nothing new to learn, i could use a class on perfectly pinching and pleating dumplings, though. The frying and staming reminded me of the jiao zi, too – I love the sesame oil taste on my gyoza, but next time I’ll try to find round frozen wrappers to be able to see the difference between both versions.

I wasn’t too sure about the edamame, either – I do have some food sensitivity issues with unfermented soy, and if this hadn’t worked I would have had to substitute fava beans or the likes, to achieve the same colorful effect. The flash-frozen green soybeans (the only kind available in my part of the world) are ready to be served in a few minutes. I didn’t care much for the taste, though. At least they didn’t give me an itch, but I guess the bag of edamame will live a long time in my freezer.

I loved the filling, but next time I’ll have to chose another type of dark miso (a saltier one) or use more of it, the filling was a bit bland, alas the dipping sauce (soy sauce and dark rice vinegar) made all the difference. For the record, I used mugi miso (the other option being hatcho miso).

Overall, aside from the pains of pleating the gyoza, this was fairly easy and I enjoyed the process. and if anyone near me needs edamame or wakame, just drop by. I have plenty left.

For the complete roundup of challenge 2 visit La Fuji Mamas blog.

Tags: Edamame, gyoza, Japan, Japanese, Reis, rice

1 Kommentar »

Trackback URI | Kommentare als RSS