Gyoza

Gyoza 餃子(ぎょうざ)

FEBRUARY 9, 2011

by NAMI

It may look difficult to make Gyoza, but once you know how to cook them it’s actually pretty simple.  You can be very creative and try different ingredients for filling based on your own preference.  The recipe below is for a typical Japanese Gyoza.  Japanese Gyoza is distinctly different from Chinese potstickers.  Chinese potstickers tend to have a thicker skin and the filling is mostly meat.  Japanese consider Gyoza more of a side dish to complement our rice whereas the Chinese sometime eat potstickers as the main course.  Japanese Gyoza wrappers are thinner and smaller, so make sure you buy the right wrappers specifically for Japanese Gyoza.  My kids don’t look what’s inside and eat Gyoza in two or three bites.  So I “hide” lots of veggies in it and it works!  If there are leftover Gyoza wrappers, try wrapping cheese.  It is a great appetizer dish as well.

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Gyoza Recipe

Prep Time: 45 minutes

Cook Time: 45 minutes

Yield: Makes 50-60 Gyoza

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground pork
• 3-4 cabbage leaves, finely chopped
• 2 green onions, finely chopped
• 3 Shiitake mushrooms, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Tbsp. minced ginger
• 1-2 pkg Gyoza wrappers
• 1 Tbsp. oil for each batch of frying Gyoza
• ¼ cup water for each batch of frying Gyoza
• 1 Tbsp sesame oil for each batch of frying Gyoza
Seasonings
• 2 Tbsp. sake
• 1 Tbsp. sesame oil
• 2 tsp. soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
Dipping Sauce
• 1 Tbsp. rice vinegar
• 1 Tbsp. soy sauce
• 1/8 tsp. La-Yu (Japanese chili oil) (optional)

Instructions:

1. In a large bowl, combine ground pork, minced vegetables, and Seasonings. Knead the mixture with hands until it gets sticky.

2. Wrap the filling with Gyoza wrappers (See How To Wrap Gyoza). If you don’t fry Gyoza right away, sprinkle corn starch on a plate before you place Gyoza. That way it won’t stick to the plate.

3. In a large non-stick frying pan, heat oil on medium high heat. When the pan is hot, place 5 Gyoza in a row (touching each other) and place another 5 Gyoza next to them.

4. Or you can arrange them in a circular shape.

5. When Gyoza is browned (see below), pour water and put the lid on. Turn the heat to high and steam Gyoza till most of water evaporates. Be careful not to overcook Gyoza because it will burn easily.

6. When most of the water is evaporated, remove the lid to let any remaining water evaporate. Add sesame oil around the edge of the inner pan and cook uncovered until Gyoza gets nice and crisp on the bottom.

7. Scoop the 5 Gyoza together and transfer to a plate. Or for the Gyoza lined up in circular shape, place a serving plate on top of the pan and quickly flip. Serve immediately with dipping sauce.

Inarizushi

FEBRUARY 28, 2011

by NAMI

A typical Inarizushi is sushi rice inside Inari-Age (sweetened bean curd skin).  It was how I used to make Inarizushi because that’s how both my mother and grandmother made them.  Last year I discovered another way to make Inarizushi.  Since I love Shiso as an ingredient,  I included Shiso leaf and Nori  (seasoned seaweed) around sushi rice before putting in the Inari-Age.  It was surprisingly tasty!  Since then, my Inarizushi always includes Shiso leaf and Nori.  I hope you give it a try next time when you try cooking Inarizushi.  Also, for this recipe I used convenient Sushi Seasoning.  We usually make sushi rice from scratch, but keeping a bottle of  Sushi Seasoning in the fridge can be very convenient when you just need a small amount of sushi rice.

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Inarizushi

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Yield: Makes 12 Inarizushi

Ingredients:

• 1 cup uncooked Japanese rice
• 2 Tbsp. Sushi Seasoning
• 1 Tbsp. toasted white sesame seeds
• 12 Shiso leaves
• 12 Seasoned Seaweed (Nori)
• 12 Inari-Age (sweetened bean curd skin), drain the liquid.

Instructions:

1. Prepare the Sushi rice. Add Sushi Seasoning in the cooked rice.

2. Sprinkle sesame seeds and mix everything together.

3. Stuff into Age. Take a small handful of rice in a moistened hand, and make a small rice ball. Wrap each ball with a Shiso leaf and a piece of seaweed. Open and hold the Inari-Age in your hand and stuff a rice ball into the Inari-Age. You don’t want to over-stuff or they will tear. Close up the Inari-Age, and place open-end down on a plate.

Red Bean Ice Cream

JULY 11, 2011

by NAMI

Today I’m sharing red bean (Azuki) ice cream recipe at Gourmantine’s Blog.  For fellow foodies who are familiar with both Gourmantine’s and my blog, you probably know there are very little similarity with the type of recipes we share.  I don’t bake many sweets like she does, and how she prepares food is completely different from Japanese food.

However, Gourmatine’s blog has been inspiring me about cooking and encouraging me to reflect on the food I prepare with a deeper meaning.  I love to challenge myself to follow her recipe to go beyond my comfort zone and it’s always fun to read how she prepares food.  Her creations are always very original and simply irresistible.  Not to mention, all the effort she spent to make sure each recipe she shares is just perfect.  I have the good fortune of becoming friends with her and I learned that she spends quite some time to study the dishes before sharing on her blog, in order to meet her own expectation.  Since I never been to Europe myself, it’s always fun reading about her recreation of the food she had tasted during her frequent trips all over in Europe.  Remembering the exact taste is one thing, but recreating the dish from scratch is truly a rare talent.  Her cooking skills are exceptionally gifted and I’m so happy to be able to introduce her website on my blog.  If you haven’t visited her site, please visit her beautiful blog,Gourmantine’s Blog.

Red bean is by far the most popular ingredient or flavor in traditional Japanese sweets.  Its prominence in Japanese sweets is similar to chocolate for western desserts.  Even after living in the states for many years, the taste of red bean sweets makes me just a bit homesick and miss Japan.  This homemade red bean ice cream brought back the great childhood memories I had spending summers at my grandpa’s house.

I know this is already the 3rd ice cream recipe I’ve shared in the past 10 days and you probably think I am bit infatuated with my ice cream maker.  But my intention here is to share as many ice cream recipes as possible before summer ends.  Also, it is finally my own recipe so please take a moment and let me know what you think.

Enjoy!

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Red Bean Ice Cream

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Yield: Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

• 100 ml (little bit less than ½ cup) water
• 100 ml (little bit less than ½ cup) sugar
• 1 (18.34oz/520g/2cups) canned sweetened red beans (mashed) (Ogura-an) (Clickhere for homemade sweetened red beans)
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1 Tbsp. black sesame seeds (optional)
• 4 Tbsp. sweetened condensed milk (optional)

Instructions:

1. In a medium saucepan, heat water and sugar on medium high heat, stirring the mixture with a wooden spoon.

2. When sugar has completely melted, add the bean paste and mix until the mixture becomes smooth.

3. Add the milk and mix all together. When it boils remove the saucepan from the heat.

4. Prepare a bowl that is set inside a large bowl filled with iced water.

5. Pour the mixture into the bowl and stir the mixture so it cools evenly.

6. When the mixture is thoroughly cooled, pour the mixture into an ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer’s instructions.

7. 30 minutes later…

8. Transfer the ice cream to an airtight container and store in the freezer for at least 3-4 hours.

9. Serve with black sesame seeds or condensed milk.

Notes

If you don't have an ice cream maker, check out here.

The following red bean ice cream is drizzled with condensed milk…

Enjoy!

Green Tea Ice Cream

Green Tea Ice Cream (Matcha Ice Cream | 抹茶アイスクリーム)

AUGUST 15, 2011

by NAMI

How was your weekend?  I’m sure everyone is trying to squeeze in some fun activities with family and friends before school starts in 1-2 weeks.  We went to Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk again for fun rides and playing at the beach with the kids.  Thank you everyone for the kind comments and emails for the past few days.  I have read them all happily and I’ll be responding shortly.

I am so excited to share this ice cream recipe with you.  I’ve been in the US for 15 years (in 5 years, my time spent in the US and Japan will be equal!).  However, I had never tasted green tea ice cream that is authentic.  Häagen-Dazs® Green Tea ice cream is pretty close, but other brands of green tea ice cream out there are way too creamy.  The Japanese green tea ice cream is not as creamy, and it is sweet, but it has very strong Matcha taste that is almost bitter.  Am I confusing you a bit?

Some of you might have a hard time finding Matcha (100% natural green tea powder).  I use this Japanese brand maeda-en, and their “culinary quality” green tea powder is pretty good (Japanese supermarket sells this for around $6.  Just so you know, even for the Japanese, matcha is considered a very expensive ingredient.

When I tasted this ice cream, I was surprised how authentic the taste was and it brought me right back to Japan!!  If you know what I’m talking about and miss authentic Japanese green tea ice cream, then this is it!  

Before going onto the recipe, I’d like to announce that I was interviewed by Correen at Food Lovers Website.  I hope you enjoy getting to know me a little bit more by reading her post.  Have a great week!

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Green Tea Ice Cream Recipe (Matcha Ice Cream)

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Yield: Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Half and Half, or 1 cup whole milk and 1 cup cream (Half and Half is basically a mixture of one part milk to one part cream and is sold in the US.)
• ½ cup sugar
• 3 Tbsp. 100% natural green tea powder (matcha powder)
• Pinch of salt

Instructions:

1. Freeze ice cream bowl for 24 hours.
2. In a medium sauce pan, whisk together the half and half, green tea powder, sugar, and salt. Heat the mixture until it comes to a full boil. Keep whisking until mixture starts to foam, then remove from heat.

3. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl. When it’s cooled down, refrigerate the mixture until completely chilled.

4. Churn for 20-25 minutes in ice cream maker, according to manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer into a container and freeze for at least 3 hours before serving.

Notes

If you don't have an ice cream maker, check out here.

Source: Sweets by Sillianah

Enjoy!

Tagged as: green tea, half and half, ice cream

Potato Salad Pork Roll

SEPTEMBER 2, 2011

by NAMI

Japanese cooking uses thinly sliced beef and pork for many dishes.  One of the most common way to utilize these thin slices of meat is to roll something with it.  In my blog, I’ve shared several beef and pork roll recipes so far and they are:

• Soy-Glazed Vegetable Beef Rolls
• Baby Carrot Beef Rolls
• Mashed Potato Teriyaki Pork Rolls
• Ginger Pork Rolls with Eggplant

Using sliced meat allows us to be very creative and I like hiding veggies in the meat so my kids tend to finish the vegetables with the meat (without even realizing they ate veggies).  The recipe I am sharing today is related Wednesday’s Japanese Potato Salad.  With the leftover potato salad, you can roll them with sliced pork.  This is my mother’s recipe and my dad, my brother, and I used to love eating this.  It’s one of the dishes that I feel nostalgic about.  I hope you enjoy this delicious pork roll.

Before going to the recipe, I want to thank Kym of Free Spirit Eater for the blog awards.  Thank you Kym!!  Have a great long weekend everyone!

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Potato Salad Pork Roll

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Yield: Serves 4

Ingredients:

• Japanese Potato Salad (I usually serve half as salad and use the other half for this roll)
• 1 pkg (5 oz) sliced pork (for shabu shabu) from Japanese market
• ¼ cup corn starch
• 1-2 Tbsp. sesame oil
Sauce
• 2 Tbsp. soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp. mirin
• 1 ½ tsp. sugar
• ½ tsp. ginger, grated

Instructions:

1. Place Japanese Potato Salad on the bottom end of a piece of sliced pork and roll to wrap it up with the sliced meat.

2. Dredge the rolls in corn starch or sprinkle corn starch on top of rolls. Remove excess corn starch off from the meat.

3. Heat 1 Tbsp. of sesame oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Gently place the meat rolls in the pan and brown all sides. Do not touch the meat unless the bottom of the meat is nicely golden color. Then turn to brown all sides. If you start turning the rolls too often, the potato salad will come out from the side. If you need more oil to brown the meat faster, add another 1 Tbsp. of sesame oil.

4. When all sides are nicely golden browned, cover and cook 3 minutes on medium-low heat.

5. Add Sauce. Shift the frying pan and rotate the meat rolls to coat evenly. Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Temari Sushi

OCTOBER 3, 2011

by NAMI

I hope everyone had a great weekend.  I took a week off to update my site.  Um, where’s the update you might ask?  It’s our new Recipe Index.  I have to give a huge credit for my husband because he did the majority of work by creating codes while I just did the tedious “cut and paste” part.  Updating the recipe index with a better thumbnail for each recipe had been my #1 to-do list for a while.  I wanted my Recipe Index to be more user-friendly and visually attractive so users can tell with a quick glance what the dish is (even if they don’t recognize the name).  Hopefully this will help with your recipe browsing experience making it easier and more fun.  I still have Recipe Index by List, Ingredient, and A-Z available in case you prefer the old version.  I also modified my recipe box – I think the new version is easier to read and print out.  I hope you like these new updates.

Now, are you ready for the giveaway winner?  Here’s the winner.  Congratulations Martha!  I’ll be contacting you shortly.  Thank you everyone for joining this giveaway and I’ll be working on your recipe request. 

*****

Today my Temari Sushi recipe is being featured on celebrations.com.  This was a huge honor.  Initially my guest post was supposed to go on their blog site, but the editor wanted to feature my post on their main site!  Thank you celebration.com for featuring my post.

Temari Sushi is a casual sushi that we can make at home.  You don’t need sushi chef’s skill to make these cute delicious little balls of sushi.  Temari (“hand ball” in Japanese) originated from China is children’s toy ball made from remnants of old kimonos and covered with colorful fabrics.

Temari Balls made by 90 year old lady in Japan
Photo Courtesy of NanaAkua (click for more photos)

As time passed and rubber balls were invented, Temari evolved from play toys to folk art objects.  Since then their unique, colorful, and elegant designs have been enjoyed by the Japanese as decorations inside homes.

Just like Temari, Temari Sushi allows people to create any type of sushi they want using all kinds of ingredients.  Enjoy and be creative to make these colorful sushi balls!

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Temari Sushi

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Yield: Serves 4 (28 Temari Sushi)

Ingredients:

• Sushi Rice
• 1/2 inch lotus root
• 1/2 inch carrot
• 1 egg
• A pinch of salt
• 2 lemon slices
• 1/4 avocado
• 1/4 cup Sakura Denbu
• 1/2 sheet of nori seaweed
• 3 shiso (Perilla)
• Kaiware daikon (radish shoot) for garnish
Seasoning
• 1/2 cup dashi stock
• 1 tsp. sake
• 1 tsp. mirin
• 1 tsp. sugar
• 2 tsp. usukuchi (light color) soy sauce (or replace with 1 tsp. regular soy sauce + ¼ tsp. salt)
• A pinch of salt
Your Selection of Sashimi
• Salmon
• Tuna
• Tai (Sea Bream)
• Hamachi (Yellowtail)
• Uni (Sea Urchin)
• You can also use cooked shrimp, smoked salmon, etc.
• For US residents, you can buy sashimi grade raw fish at Catalina Offshore Products.

Instructions:

1. Remove the part of lotus root to make it look like flower pattern.

2. And cut out the carrot slices to look like flower.

3. In a small saucepan, bring Seasoning to a boil and add lotus root and carrot. Cook until soft.

4. In a non-stick frying pan heat oil over medium heat. In a bowl, whisk egg and salt together. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and make sure the egg is spread evenly. Flip once the bottom side is cooked. When the egg is cooked, take it out and chiffonade the egg into thin strips.

5. Place a sheet of plastic wrap on top of scale and measure 30g (2 Tbsp) of sushi rice and make a round ball. Transfer to a plate and measure next batch. Make sure to cover the rice ball with saran wrap and sushi rice with the damp towel to prevent from the rice drying.

6. Cut Sashimi into thin slices.

7. Place a sheet of plastic wrap and lay down the sashimi of your choice. Put the sushi rice ball on top, wrap the saran wrap around the rice ball. Twist and close the wrap tightly make a ball shape.

8. Continue with other ingredients.

9. Garnish with ikura, kaiware daikon, and other miniature greens.

{Left to right from top}
1. Egg + Shiso + Carrot, 2. Avocado + Tuna, 3. Smoked Salmon + Lemon, 4. Egg + Nori Seaweed + Ikura, 5. Shiso + Ikura, 6. Uni (sea urchin) + Nori Seaweed + Ikura, 7. Shiso + Tai (Sea Bream), 8. Sakura Denbu + Shiso, 9. Smoked Samon + Lemon, 10. Shrimp + Ikura, 11. Avocado + Tuna, 12. Lotus Root + Carrot, 13. Shiso + Lotus Root + Carrot, 14. Egg + Nori Seaweed + Ikura, 15. Hamachi (yellowtail) + Kaiware Daikon, 16. Salmon + Ikura

Enjoy!