Prairie View

Saturday, November 11, 2017

Gyoza Meal

This post is about an event Hiromi and I hosted Wednesday night at our church kitchen.  Our small group from church were the guests--working guests.  It's full of details, so consider yourself warned--in case you're averse to such details.

The main event was preparing and consuming gyoza, the name for the Japanese dumplings we always eat on New Year's Day and at other times.  Preparation requires a lot of handwork, so we really needed the help that was offered us--after we asked for it, actually--full disclosure here.

Our church kitchen is still relatively new, and the large central island was a perfect work station for a dozen or more people to work on the same project at the same time.

We cooked the gyoza in an electric skillet at each of four different tables, at which the guests were seated.  The skillets were fired up after prayer.  We remembered our pastors who are in India right now--Lowell among them--on his birthday. 

Besides the gyoza, people had brought in cooked rice and prepared leafy vegetable salads,  minus the dressing. 

Chinese cabbage is one of the main gyoza ingredients.  What we used came from our garden.  Bulk sausage is another main ingredient.  We're fortunate enough to have two pork producers in our small group--Jordan Nisly and Oren Yoder's family.  Since Jordan's ready supply of sausage was temporarily depleted, we used Oren's.  It may have been produced on Shane's farm, where I grew up.  The gyoza skins (very simple flat three inch dough circles made of flour and water) came ready-made from an Asian grocery store in Wichita.  Nelson and Hannah picked them up several days before when they went to Wichita for another purpose.  We also used a few wonton skins/wrappers from Dillons in Hutch--to  make the qyoza filling and the skins come out even.  These are about the same size, but square, and containing eggs and other ingredients besides flour and water.  They worked OK too, despite my fears that the thinner skins would tear in the frying pan.

The rest of the ingredients came from Walmart and from our supply at home.  Miso paste, rice vinegar, soy sauce, and sesame oil (made from toasted seeds) are things we always keep on hand.  The miso salad dressing we served looked like thin peanut butter and tasted quite lively by itself.  We could have used more salad and more dressing. 

The gyoza (dumplings) are first fried on both sides in sesame oil.  Then a bit of water is added and, with a tight-fitting lid in place, the steam finishes cooking the gyoza.  Each person has a small bowl of dipping sauce in which the gyoza are dipped before eating with plain rice. 

The salad as a side dish was our idea--not a standard Japanese meal ingredient.  We did also serve kimchee, Korea's most famous pickled vegetable, but it's very popular in Japan as well.  The Chinese cabbage for the kimchee came from our garden also.  Hiromi makes our kimchee in a short fermentation process--not unlike sauerkraut (on steroids, as James put it).  In Korea, the process can be many months long, with the container buried underground for the duration. 

Hiromi had done almost all the preparation ahead of the event at home, except for the assembly of the gyoza.  I had assembled recipes and made grocery and supplies lists and prepared and distributed information and invitations beforehand.  When I got home from school, I consulted the lists of things to take to church and helped gather and load those, and we were off.  Others arrived around 6:00 and we started eating around 7:00.  Hiromi paid for the sausage and the gyoza skins, It was a fun evening--the kind that we could not possibly have pulled off without a lot of help. 

One milestone for this gathering is that it was the first time that Titus and Sheri's brand new baby, Kayden Tate, has been present at our small group gathering.  LaVon and Twila's family could not attend because a number of them were sick.  Crist was sick too, and Mae stayed home with him.  Amos and Anne no longer go away much in the evening, so they were absent also.  Present were more than a half dozen strapping young men with big appetites. 

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For my own records especially, I'm posting the gyoza meal recipes and notes below:

Gyoza

1 lb. loose sausage
2 c. finely chopped Chinese cabbage
½ c. green onion, finely sliced–including tops
1 T. grated ginger root
2 t. sesame oil (made from toasted seeds)
½ t. salt
1 ½  t. soy sauce
2 cloves garlic, chopped or pressed

Gyoza wrappers (This meat mixture will probably make about 1 ½ pack–75 in a pack.)

Chop Chinese cabbage and mix with salt.  Allow to rest and then drain off liquid before measuring and mixing with other ingredients.

Combine all meat, vegetables, and seasonings. 

Place one rounded teaspoon (or as much as the wrapper will hold) in the center of each wrapper.  Moisten the edge of the wrapper with water.  Fold the wrapper in half and pinch the edges together.
Place assembled gyoza on parchment paper while they wait.  They will stick to almost anything else.
 Brown in dark sesame oil.  After second side is browned, put a small amount (about ½ cup?) of water in the pan with the gyoza and cover it immediately.  Let it steam until all the water cooks away and the steam is gone.

Serve with a sauce and eat with rice.

We made four batches of filling and filled about 400 skins/wrappers (for 32 people in our small group).

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Gyoza Sauce Recipe

½ c. soy sauce
1/4 c. rice vinegar
4 t. sesame oil
2-4 drops “hot” oil*
2 cloves garlic, minced

Yield: about 2/3 cup.

*Sesame oil to which powdered hot pepper has been added.

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Miso Salad Dressing

1 rounded tablespoon white or yellow miso*
1 tablespoon seasoned rice vinegar
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
½ teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1 small garlic clove; pressed, minced or put through a press
Pinch of cayenne
2 tablespoons dark sesame oil
2 tablespoons peanut oil or grapeseed oil (will use light sesame oil instead)
2 tablespoons plain low-fat yogurt (can substitute sour cream)

Combine the miso, vinegar, and lime juice in a small bowl and whisk together. Add the remaining ingredients and whisk until amalgamated. You can also mix this in a blender.
Toss with the salad of your choice.

Yield: ½ cup

*White and yellow miso are less salty than red miso.

Notes: 

1.  Instead of a small bowl for mixing, a pint jar with a lid will also work.

2.  Shaking the jar might work almost as well as whisking.

3.  I used ReaLime.

4.  We made four batches of dressing, and used about 3/4 of it for 32 people who ate at the tables. 

5.  Seasoned rice vinegar has sugar and salt added–in ratios that are good with vegetables.

Gyoza Facebook Post

That went by fast. In short order 400 gyoza (Japanese meat-and-vegetable) dumplings down someone's hungry hatch. We had great fun assembling them together and eating while the cooking happened at the tables. It was our church's monthly "small groups" night.

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Joel Iwashige I heard some enthusiastic reviews. 😀

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November 9 at 9:21am
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Rebecca Crockford I want to see photos and recipes!

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November 9 at 11:21am
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Miriam Iwashige I didn't take pictures, so they would have to come from someone else's device. The recipes I could manage--probably some time posted to my blog. Maybe I can link it here when/if that happens.

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Angela Yoder I can share a few photos

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Miriam Iwashige Yay Angela. Thanks so much for sharing the pictures.

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Yesterday at 6:44am
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Lois Mast Looks delish!

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Yesterday at 11:10am
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Joanna Yoder It was a wonderful evening meal and fun activity to do together! Were there really 400? Amazing. Love to see Hiromi share.

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November 9 at 4:24pm
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Miriam Iwashige Hiromi calculated this number from knowing how many wrapper packets we emptied and used.

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Angela Yoder I’m pretty sure it was the yummiest small group meal we’ve had.

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Yesterday at 12:09am