Gyoza (Dumplings)

I GOT A NEW CAMERA! It's red and lovely. It is taking a bit of getting used to, so please bear with me while I adjust.

Do you ever just make something that works out so well and leaves you so deliciously satisfied that you are happy for day after? I'm posting this recipe now so everyone has time during the week to go get the ingredients so you can all make them this weekend. You'll thank me.

So, last weekend I stuffed myself full of these bad boys. I first had these in Japan, and they were unlike anything I’d ever eaten before. The succulent filling, wrapped in a soft yet crunchy wrapper. I was keen for more, and actually found them in Brussels in an amazing little Thai restaurant, and that time they came with the most DIVINE dipping sauce which looked like plain soy sauce, but was actually nectar of the gods.

Ever since my second exposure to them, I was itching to have a go at home, and when I came across the technique I used here I knew that I had to have a go. I don’t have a steamer so I thought they would be lost to me. I also thought it would be hard to source the wrappers, but all the Asian grocery stores I checked had them in the freezer section.

They are extremely not hard to make, you just need to be organised (boo) and efficient, as this is a time-intensive cook. Try not to do what I did and start the whole process at 5pm. We ate at 8pm. Worth it.

The only tricky part was those characteristic and essential “pleats” which took a little bit of folding. For the technique, which is pictured in detail below, I folded it in half, and pinched it together in the centre. I then folded one side in on itself and pinched it to the other half on one side, and repeated it on the same side. I then did the same on the other side of the centre pinch. I then pinched the ends closed. Voila!

Katsu Curry

I've been a bit AWOL recently- life was getting in the way of fun stuff.

But I'm back, and with one of my favourite things I have ever made. I was so happy with it, I skipped a little tiny bit, and annoyed my boyfriend with my yummy noises.

So, as you may remember, I hit up Tokyo last summer, and it was one of the best holidays I have ever had. The experience was unlike anything I’ve ever done before, and probably my favourite part was the astonishingly different cuisine.  I’m not going to lie, I don’t like sushi, so that was not what I was going there for. I was going to slurp some ramen greedily like Naruto. Which I, of course, accomplished.

Buuut, my mind was blown by a burgeoning Japanese fast food staple, kare raisu . From students to tourists, to salarymen, they come and sit on a tall stool in front of the chefs in their whites, and tuck into a BIG (and they don’t scrimp on portions) plate of rice, crispy breaded meat, all covered with some thick, silky smooth curry sauce.

THE SAUCE!

I could eat this sauce on its own all day long. When no one is looking, I smother rice in it and eat it with a spoon (chopsticks are too hard and cutlery feels like sacrilege). That’s why I always double the sauce amount, for sneaky leftovers. You could halve it and have no sauce leftovers (if you were MAD).

Seriously. Make it now. You won’t be disappointed. You might even cry a little bit. I did.

Pork Ramen

So, I did say that I had been travelling recently, and the first stop was TOKYO! It was amazing, and crazy, and unlike any holiday I have ever had. I would go back in a heartbeat, mainly for the food.

When I go on my holidays, I don’t tend to seek out haute cuisine or Michelin stars. I want to eat what the locals are eating, I want to hit up their versions of fast food, and greasy spoon cafes. And that is what we did in Tokyo. Sitting on a little stool at a bench, in front of a guy making whatever local thing I was getting was one of my absolute favourite memories of the holiday.

And my absolute favourite thing I had to eat there? RAMEN! And the best one I had, I am trying to recreate here. A smooth but dark and translucent broth, topped with scallions, an egg and a chunk of amazing pork belly.

So, there are a few schools of thought with ramen, there’s miso ramen and shoyu ramen, there’s a myriad of toppings, but always the noodles reign supreme. God forbid you overcook your noodles – many ramen places in Japan refuse to give ‘to go’ as the noodles may have overccoked in the broth by the time you get home.

Most of the ingredients and utensils are pretty standard in any supermarket or Asian food store. I easily found the soy sauce and sesame oil in Asda, and the mirin and ramen noodles were just as easily found in my local medium sized Chinese supermarket. I also found the little flat spoons there for sluuuurping the sauce, and they had chopsticks too (though I brought loads of them home from Tokyo). Including CHARMANDER ONES!

Other toppings can of course be used, including mushrooms, beansprouts, nori (seaweed), corn etc etc. I just used what I liked! And I like it very, very much.

Serves about 3