Homemade Gyoza (Potstickers)

Whew, lots of December things to catch up on here on the blog! Despite a crazy few weeks of exams and papers and presentations, I still managed to squeeze in some baking to get rid of some stress.

December 11, 2015

For a long time now, I've been wanting to make my own gyoza (Japanese potstickers), as they are a little hard to find in my corner of the world when I am at college. I found the gyoza skin recipe on La Fuji Mama and had it bookmarked for about a year before I finally got to it and made these.

First I made a pan of filling. To keep it relatively simple, I just stir-fried chopped Chinese cabbage, shiitake mushroom (dried and rehydrated), carrots, and ginger, which I seasoned with vegetarian oyster sauce. On hindsight, adding something to try and make it hold together more easily would have made wrapping the gyoza easier, but I was out of tofu and patience.

Then I made the skins, and rolled them out flat. As I am not proficient at making nice circles with just the rolling pin, I cheated by using a circle cutter to cut them out with.

Everything was kept under a wet towel while L and I wrapped them (she helped me to speed up the process). I think we made about 33 of them, though the dough was a bit too thickly rolled, and the thicknesses were uneven.

Then L helped me fry them on a nonstick pan until the bottom was nicely browned, before adding hot water to the pan and covering it, to steam the tops of the gyoza.

We ate these dipped in a mix of veg ponzu sauce (mix of soy sauce and citrus) and chili.

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GYOZA SKIN RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• flour for dusting

  Procedure

1. In a bowl, mix flour and salt. Make a well in the middle.
2. With chopsticks or another utensil, add hot water in the well and mix in flour progressively until a dough is formed.
3. Roll into a ball. Some more water may be required.
4. Cover with a damp cloth and let site for 1 hour.
5. Knead on a floured surface for about 5 mins.
6. Form into a log and cut into about 40 slices.
7. Roll into round skins (or use round cookie cutter to make circles), dusting both sides with flour.
8. Fill and cook, or wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until use.

Murder Mystery Carrot Cake

This week, an event that was a collaboration between two societies at the university (cooking and games) occurred. This was a Murder Mystery Dinner! I was asked if I wanted to bake and thus contribute to the dessert spread, and as I was being flooded in schoolwork, I (of course) decided to jump on it!

I wanted to "catch up" on the lack of frosting and layering from the last cake I made for Cooking Society, so I went all out. I made a double batch of carrot cake in a 24 cm springform pan. The next day, I cut it into 2 layers, and made a frosting out of cream cheese, Greek yogurt (to increase the volume), and icing sugar. I spread this between the two layers, and on top of the cake, and piped some dollops with my new silicone piping bag and some piping tips that I never got to use before. Unfortunately, the frosting had warmed considerably at that point, and was not so firm.

To keep up with the theme, I piped "Murder Mystery" with the crossed fork and knife logo of the cooking society, and added a smattering of powdered cinnamon on top.

The baking paper is still visible, as I delivered it in the springform pan covered with a sheet of aluminum foil to keep dust and the like at bay. I decorated the cake during my lunch break, then went to class, while the cake rested in the fridge. I then came back to pick it up, and decided not to risk biking with a cake in my hand.

Carrot Cake

Phew, finally caught up on the backlog! Here is what I baked yesterday: Carrot cake!

The main reason for this was because I had carrots laying around. The other reasons include, but are not limited to: I needed to de-stress, I have never made this before, and "why not?"

The process to make the batter reminded me a lot of banana bread, except that I had grate the carrots instead of simply mashing my bananas. The ingredients used are similar, although I haven't really gone to see if the proportions are the same. Probably not, since bananas have a higher water content than do carrots.

I adapted a recipe from Spice Up The Curry, although I changed some things according to personal preferences, such as cutting down the sugar and changing some sugar types. I made 2 small, pretty tall cakes instead of a larger, flatter one, though to be honest, I did not think it would rise that much even with the amount of leavening agents involved.

The cake was frosted with an improvised cream cheese frosting, namely cream cheese, powdered sugar, and lime. The amounts? I kind of ad-libbed. I put some cream cheese in. Then I squeezed a small section of a lime in, tasted it... "Not sour enough." After a couple more times, it had enough of the citrus zing to it to match my imagined taste, but then I only had a small piece of lime left. "Oh well" preceded my squeezing of the rest of it in. Then I added a little bit more cream cheese because it had gotten pretty watery by then. Powdered/icing sugar was added to round off the sourness, then the whole bowl took an overnight nap in the fridge just because we were too full to eat last night, and I was not going to frost it ahead of time.

For extra texture, I put some crushed walnuts over the top, and gave it all a bit of color with a dusting of cinnamon. This cake was nice and moist, which was very pleasant to eat.

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CARROT CAKE RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 pinches salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 cup + 2 tbs neutral oil
• 1/4 cup golden sugar
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup soymilk
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 cup grated carrots

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 180°C.
2. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Whisk well.
3. In a mixing bowl, whisk sugars and oil. Add in soymilk and water and whisk well.
4. Add in the flour mix in 2 times, mixing well each time.
5. Fold in the carrots.
6. Pour into a prepared pan, and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Eggless Quiche

I got a new kitchen (with induction stove, microwave, and oven all included) installed in my to-be apartment at home! I really was looking forward to testing the oven!

I found a pastry dough in the freezer, and decided to tackle an egg-free version of quiche. Going with what vegetables were available, I quickly stir-fried some shredded carrots, celery, cauliflower, and frozen green peas. To that, I added some crushed tofu (about half a block).

To bind it together, I made a béchamel sauce which had Greek yogurt instead of milk or cream (for a healthier option, as well as for thickening purposes. I was really surprised when the quiche came out of the oven somewhat yellowed! I guess the browning from the oven, plus the color of the carrots kind of helped to bring out such a color. I am very happy with using tofu and béchamel to bind things together into a quiche, so I'll likely make it again.

Pseudo Terrine

 

Some of you might know how much of a manga fan I am. Lately, I've been reading a lot of Shokugeki no Souma. In there, one of the characters makes a terrine. Since I read that, I've been thinking of making a terrine for a while.

Some issues: most terrines use meat or gelatin or eggs to hold the layers together. Due to an excess of carrots, I decided to try to make a semi-mousse out of them. I used some peanut butter and corn starch as binding agents. Unfortunately, I had to add a lot of water for the carrots to blend properly. Then I didn't have time to chill the whole thing... so it kind of flopped.

The edge is made out of steamed eggplant slices. Then I had a layer of carrot "mousse," a mix if mashed peas and potatoes, some sliced mushroom, then another layer of carrot. This was served with an herb sauce (perilla, cilantro, lemon juice, and a bit of olive oil) and a quark sauce.

Maybe next time I'll add tofu to the carrot layer... and I will chill it properly with a weight for it to hold together better.

Potato salad

Potatoes were starting to grow things out of their buds... way time to eat them. I didn't what to make for dinner anyways.

Am I going to start blogging my college meal every day? I don't think so. Just these days, I'm getting some kind of food creativity/motivation, so I keep on doing things that are more than simply veggies and rice.

And I'm posting this more more for me to be able to find the dressing recipe again if needed.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients (amounts according to how much is required)

• potatoes
• carrot(s)
• cucumber (leftovers from yesterday's sushi night)
• 1 tsp mustard
• 1/2 lemon's juice
• 1 tbs mayonnaise/vegenaise
• salt and pepper, to taste

  Procedure

1. Dice potatoes, carrots (smaller than potatoes), slice cucumbers however you ant.
2. Steam or boil potatoes until tender. Steam or boil carrots until just cooked.
3. Refrigerate carrots and potatoes until cold.
4. Mix with cucumber slices.
5. In a bowl, mix mustard, lemon juice, mayonnaise, and season to taste. Multiply quantities as required.
6. Mix into the potato salad, careful to not mash the potatoes.

Norimaki (sushi)

When I have mozzarella and avocados, the first thing I think of is that I can make sushi with it. Like I've mentioned before, it has somehow become normal to put strips of mozzarella in my sushi...

I really liked the arrangement of the plate today, so I decided to make a blog post about it =D

Clockwise from the top left: cucumber, tofu, carrot, avocado, and mozzarella.

For a simple make-it-yourself dinner, we just set out the nori sheets cut in half, rice (black rice this time), cut up ingredients, and wasabi and soy sauce, and each of us rolls our own. I usually make a roll, cut in 4, and then eat it dipped in soy sauce and wasabi powder.

The two end pieces are not as pretty, but the middle pieces are nice! ^_^

Veggie-ful lunch~

I haven't had much time not chance to cook a lot these days... What with exams, and stress, I was lucky to have a cousin over to help cook for me while my parents are gone on vacation.

My cousin left last night, though, so I had to feed myself. I remembered there were a few endives in the fridge, so I originally planned to make a salad. Somehow, I felt it was too boring, so I thought I'd make something a little different.

Chicon bites! (chicon is the term used in Belgium for endives)

Basically, I took the endive leaves and cut them in half to make curved boat-like recipients, in which I spooned a bit of filling. The whole plate was made with just 1 endive, 1 tomato, a few pieces of tofu skin log (it's kind of like an alternative to meat... it has a slightly sweet and savory flavor).

I ate a late breakfast with another cousin, and she had leftover salad dressing. So I mixed that with the diced ingredients, chopped some Vietnamese perilla, and filled my endive leaves. I also made a few cuts in the heart of the endive and poured some dressing inside.

The dressing is made of grainy mustard, salt, sugar, pepper, olive oil, and some balsamic vinegar. I topped the whole thing with some more perilla.

I accompanied it all with a small amount of carrot matchsticks and a yogurt dip in which I mixed a bit of oregano, a hint of paprika, and a speck of cinnamon.

Onigiri!

Once again home alone, with some leftover salty, poached tofu in the fridge and leftover rice in the rice cooker, I thought "hey, I can try making onigiri!" (onigiri are rice balls, sometimes with filling, usually wrapped in nori seaweed)

Some of them contain chopped poached tofu and chopped boiled carrots, others have a chopped tofu and mayo mix. I had some leftover chopped carrots, so I added them as a side.

I mixed in some salt, sugar, and rice vinegar into the rice to make sushi rice, just for fun and additional flavor. I even tried making faces with the nori seaweed, but they're kind of failed... =D