Blog Party #16 Takeout

Stephanie over at Dispensing Happiness invited me to her latest party. The theme was takeout or in Kiwispeak "takeaways". This is my first blog party and I'm very excited to be here. Hope you like my food.

We often go to a Japanese restaurant called Yatai Japanese Izakaya Restaurant and their food is awesome. The menu is along the style of Japanese bar where you order small dishes of food to share such as sushi, terayaki chicken and itty bitty fried whole shrimp. My husband’s favourite is their gyoza and I make a pretty mean version at home. He even thinks they are better than Yatai’s and that's a compliment. My recipe is courtesy of Simon Holst from his book Fast and Fantastic. Unlike many recipes this one does not have cabbage. The recipe makes LOTS gyoza and you can assemble them and freeze them prior to the pan frying and steaming stage.

The Chinese get credit for the invention of this little dumpling which is essentially the same as the Chinese Jiaozi. The gyoza was not introduced to Japan until the 1940's most likely adapted after the Japanese invasion of China in the late 1930's. Since then the Gyoza has become so popularized that there are Gyoza restaurants and even a Gyoza Stadium located in Osaka, Japan. The Gyoza Stadium has a museum complete with history and explanations of the many varieties of this adopted dish (This information courtesy of Gourmet Sleuth).

Gyoza

Ingredients
Filling:
1 large clove garlic
Freshly grated ginger
4-5 spring onions/green onions, roughly chopped
400g/1 lb pork mince
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons sesame oil
½ teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
Dumpling wrappers
2-3 teaspoons oil
1-1 ½ hot chicken stock/broth
Dipping sauce to serve

Method
Chop the garlic, ginger and onions
Add the next five ingredients and mix thoroughly


Place a heaped teaspoon of the filling in the middle of a wrapper (don’t be too generous) or you won’t be able to seal the dumpling)


Moisten around the edges and fold the wrapper in half to make a half moon shaped package
Crimp the edges to seal
Sit the dumplings seam side up on a board


Heat about a teaspoon of the oil in a large non stick pan
Add as many of the dumplings as will comfortably fit with a little space between
Cook over medium heat for 2-3 minutes until the bottoms are golden brown
Pour ½ cup of the hot stock into the pan, cover with a close fitting lit and cook for 5-6 minutes until almost all the liquid has gone and the dumplings are cooked through (cut one in half to test)
Place the cooked dumplings on a warmed plate and cover with foil while you cook the remaining dumplings
Serve with dipping sauce – I put out separate dishes of soy sauce and sweet chilli sauce

Makes about 30 dumplings

A nice cold beer goes well with Japanese food but I’m not a big beer drinker unless it’s a stinking hot day and I’m really really thirsty. Occasionally I’ll have a shandy which is beer and lemonade. Before you wrinkle your nose up I mean Sprite or 7-Up, not the homemade kind of lemonade. Proportions are to taste - I like mine about half and half.