Mushroom, Tofu and Coriander Dumplings (or Vegan Gyoza)

The other night I made mushroom ramen soup, which was very good, but that is only the beginning of the story, and the recipe for the Ramen is not in this post (if you are interested you can read it here or scroll below this post).

The thing is that to make the mushroom stock I used a lot of mixed dried Asian mushrooms, and I had a bit leftover, so I decided to use them to make dumplings.

So the ingredients are:

Cooked Asian mushrooms (about a cup)

Dumpling pastry (50 pieces, round)

Tofu, 1 block

Coriander (a few leaves and stalks)

Soy sauce, to taste (I always use Japanese soy sauce)

There are two more ingredients which I didn't photograph, one is

Sesame oil, 1 tsp

(I didn't take a photo because my bottle is too greasy and you cannot read the label)

and the second is

Bread crumbs, 1 or 2 tbsp

(I didn't take a photo because I was to busy mixing the filling)

Place the mushrooms, tofu, coriander, soy sauce and sesame oil in a food processor and pulse until you get a fine texture. Add the bread crumbs a little at the time to reach a workable thickness (the other ingredients have high liquid content). I add bread crumbs also because they give the filling a nice and balanced taste, bringing out the Umami in the other ingredients.

I didn't add salt: the mushrooms were cooked in a light vegetable stock, and the soy sauce is salted. But you do what you like :-)

Here my 11 years old daughter took over the camera for the first step by step pics.

Place a little filling on each pastry circle

Lightly wet the borders with water

Gently fold the pastry

Pinch the ends well and make sure that there are no air bubbles inside

If you can, try to make them look pretty!

Done!

Now Arantxa has a go! We had 50 dumplings to make, so it is good to do it with someone, or it gets boring!

To cook them:

Personally I really like steamed dumplings, or cooked in a soup, but we had soup the night before, and my family really liked them fried... but I didn't want to fry all those dumplings (too greasy) so I opted for a half-way. In Japan they make Gyosa, also called potstickers, you cook them quickly in a hot pot with very little oil.

Place them in the hot pot standing up so that the bottom get golden and lightly crunchy, then turn them on both sides (I did 25 at the time and it was hard work!!!). At the end you are supposed to put a lid on and let them simmer in their own steam for a few seconds, but because I had so many dumplings I pan fried them in two batches, then put them all back in the pot and added just a little water to create more steam. Lid on for a minute and they were ready and piping hot. We ate them with sweet chilli sauce and soy sauce, very filling, 50 between 4 people and our bellies were round, and satisfied!

How to make Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum), and Sweet New Zealand

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A crop which gives me great pleasure is borlotti beans, not only for their flavour but also because I love the idea of growing protein food! I eat fresh borlotti, or I dry them and then use them to make nice soups and stews; in particular I like soups with pumpkins, but since this year I am traveling on, I will not enjoy the pumpkins that are growing in my garden. So I tried a different 'pairing'. A friend gave me some kamo kamo, the traditional Maori squash, and told me that the way to eat it is to boil it (skin on) and then cut it and spread it with butter (or olive oil...) salt and pepper, and scoop the flesh out with a fork. I had two kamo kamo so I boiled one (as a was told) and cut the other and sauted with a drop of olive oil and other vegetables from my garden: red onion, and celery. Then I added the beans and some water, salt and pepper, and cooked everything until the beans were soft. I added water little by little, when necessary, and I thought that this would be goo

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