My dad very kindly bought me the new Wagamama recipe book for Christmas, simply titled The Wagamama Cookbook (available on Amazon here). My new obsession with Wagamama's began when I was working in Richmond and frequented the Wagamama's there all too often. The first time I went to Wagamamas was about 5 years ago, and I just didn't get it, I couldn't understand the menu, it seemed needlessly complicated and I didn't ever go back. But as I've matured and my cooking and eating style has changed, Asian food features heavily on our weekly menu!My favourite Waga's small dish is the chicken gyoza. They are beautiful delicate little nuggets of fresh, steamed goodness and I can't get enough of them. In fact all types of Asian dumplings I love, dim sum dumplings, won tons and of course these delicious gyoza. So I went straight to work poring through my Waga's cookbook to learn all about it!
This cookbook is hard to say the least. I was inundated with pages of foreign sounding ingredients, and every recipe seemed to take a day to make, referring back repeatedly to the impossible list of ingredients, and I felt disheartened. And then one Saturday coming home from Ikea, I drove past a Chinese Supermarket Mecca (my favourite place, Wing Yip Store in Croydon! They sell their ingredients on Amazon here) and went in to see if I could find some of the ingredients.I bought 2 packs of gyoza skins, amongst many other eastern wares, and really, I recommend that you buy pre-made skins as I wouldn't even know where to begin with an explanation of how to make them! They come in packs of 50 or a hundred and I keep them in the freezer and take 10 or so at a time to make the gyoza.
I did quite a bit of research about gyoza, which is the Japanese name for them and then jiaozi, which is the Chinese name for them. There is also a differentiation in how they are cooked, either boiled ('shuijiao' literally meaning water dumpling), steamed ('zhengjiao') or shallow fried 'guotie' which translates to 'pot stick', hence the American name for them, potstickers! The Wagamama technique involves both gentle frying and steaming, so who knows what that makes them! The basic elements for this dish are super easy: meat (or not, if you are a veggie), vegetables, seasoning and the gyoza skins! I am not one for following rules, so recipes very seldom get adhered to in my kitchen, and rather I go with what I have. I did follow the quantities in the book, which make about 30 because I wanted to have some in the freezer ready for when a craving hit! It does seem a lot, but the mixture freezes well, ready for the next time you want some. 5 or 6 per person as a starter or a snack is sufficient.There are quite a lot of vegetables in the mixture, and obviously they need to blended quite finely. One good tip from the book says to drain the mixture to try and get some of the liquid out. You don't need to be fastidious about this, a quick squeeze will do, as long as the mixture isn't swimming in liquid you'll be ok! I used chicken for these gyoza, and didn't buy minced chicken, I just blended the chicken thighs I had, obviously skinned and boned!
Here is the full post: Chicken Gyoza dumplings
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