Homemade Gluten Free Gyozas

So, Gyoza are something we have a wagamamas on occasions and, although we love them, they are pretty expensive for what you’re getting. It isn’t something I had ever thought about trying to make before but I had a craving and decided to look up some recipes for inspiration.

As I’m sensitive to gluten, it made sense that I should make a gluten free gyoza dough. After looking at many recipes I found this one here, it looked pretty straight forward so i was just going to make it, until i realised I didnt have any millet flour. So I did some research and found that I should be able to use quinoa flour instead of the millet.. Seeing as this is a new thing to me, I thought  ‘Hey, lets wing it and see’. So the dough I have made is not my own, just an adaptation of this one.

Now, with the filling, I really wanted something simple with just vegetables and most of the recipes I found contained either meat, tofu or some exotic ingredients that I havent heard of! So instead of following a recipe I adapted this one and made it with simple ingredients you’re likely to have in the cupboard!

Making the gyozas was a pretty long winded process but it was an easy one and definitely worth the time! They were absolutely delicious and tasted fantastic dunked in the dipping sauce from this recipe.

For most of the filling recipes I looked at they called for many different types of cabbage, mostly  wombok but alas, this is not readily available when I live so instead of going out to hunt for a replacement I noticed we had a large stockpile of sprouts which are basically baby cabbages. Thankfully, they worked perfectly and tasted fantastic. Not only that but they were super easy to shred finely. So yeah, you can play around with sprouts or whatever cabbages you can get your hands on! Go wild!

I started by making the filling, so that it had time to chill before it was time to use it. If you have the means to chill the filling whilst the dough is resting, then make it after you’ve made the dough! It will work either way.

Ingredients for the filling

• 100g mushrooms finely chopped (I used chestnut)
• 2 spring onions thinly sliced
• 2 large cloves of garlic, crushed
• 1 cup of finely shredded cabbage (I used sprouts)
• 1 packed tbsp grated ginger
• 1 carrot, grated
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1/2 tbsp rice vinegar
• 1 tsp sesame oil

Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the mushrooms, onion, garlic, cabbage, carrot and ginger. Fry for around 6 minutes till the cabbage has wilted and the carrots have softened. Stir in the soy sauce and rice vinegar. Take the pan off of the heat and transfer the mix to a bowl to cool. Place to one side until you are ready to use it.

Ingredients for the dough

• 95g tapioca starch
• 95g quinoa flour
• 122g glutinous (sweet) rice flour + more for dusting
• 2tsp xanthan gum
• 3/4 cup of just boiled water
• 1-2tsp cold water
• 2 cups of dumpling filling

Mix together the tapioca starch, quinoa flour, sweet rice flour and the xanthan gum in a bowl. Pour in the just boiled water and stir together to create a crumbly mixture. Now, using your hands, knead in 1-2 tbsp of cold water to bring the mixture into a smooth ball of dough. Place the ball of dough into a plastic bag, prefereably zip-top, squeeze the air out then close. Let the dough sit in the bag for between 15 minutes and 2 hours.

To form the dumplings: Lightly flour the work surface with sweet rice flour. It is easier to work with just a quarter of the dough at a time, this prevents the dough drying out, so keep the dough in the bag till ready to use. Take portion of dough and roll it into a sausage shape that is around 1 inch thick. Cut this into 8 equal protions. Coat the ends of each piece with rice flour. Using your hands, press each piece into a little disk and place onto your floured surface. Roll the disk into roughly a 3 inch round using a rolling pin. Fill the wrapper with 1-2 tsp of filling, wet the edge of the wrapper with a small dab of water and close. Push the edges together into a half moon shape, stand it up, then to esure it stays shut, pinch the edges (see pictures below). There are fancier shapes you can make once you get confident, but this is a good place to start. Repeat with all of the portions of dough and place each gyoza onto a lightly floured baking tray. These are best cooked shortly after making them, but i did find they could be stored in a sealed container and cooked the next day. Apparently they can also be frozen but I havent tried myself, so if you do, let me know.

To cook: Pan fry the dumplings in batches of as many that will cover the bottom of a frying pan. Be sure to use a  non-stick pan with a lid. Put enough oil in the pan to lightly cover the bottom. Turn it up to a medium-high heat and place the dumplings in, no need to leave to much space between them, just don’t let the dumplings touch or they may stick together. Brown the bottom of the dumplings, then pour in between 1/4 to 1/3 of a cup of water (depending on size of pan). Cover the pan, turn the heat to low and let all of the water bubble away. Once there is only a dribble of water left in the pan, tilt the lid to let the steam out and continue to cook. When the water is all gone remove the lid completely and turn the heat up slightly. Fry again till the bottoms are crisp then remove them from the pan with tongs. Serve with your dipping sauce of your choice!

My recommended sauce is here.

These photos below are how I closed up my dumplings.

 

A little tip: I always buy fresh ginger roots and stick them in the freezer! This way, it doesn’t go off and is super easy to grate, plus, if you need sliced ginger, just get the ginger out of the freezer to thaw in advance and it defrosts super easily! Also, i rarely peel my ginger if i’m grating it, you won’t even notice the skin in there.

 

 

Advertisement

Mushroom soup

As a child i was never a fan of mushrooms… actually, I really, really hated them. But, as I’ve grown up, I’ve grown to enjoy their earthy flavour. I’m still not a fan of the texture of a large chunk of mushroom but as a sauce or soup they are delicious. So here is one of my first experiments with mushrooms, besides the odd mushroom risotto.. (there will be a future post on this).

In this recipe I have used a few different flavours of stock, all in the kallo brand, you can use any vegan stock you have/can get hold of. I alway have a cupboard full of different stocks but I know this isn’t always the case, so, although it will alter the taste of the soup, it will still make a super tasty soup whatever stock you use!

This soup is a big hit with my dad and boyfriend. It is creamy and filling and so easy to make and eat!

When making a soup, I like to cut things quite small so that they cook quicker as I’m very impatient.. as the photo below shows, this is how I cut my carrots as I always find they take far longer to cook than potatoes!

 

I usually blend my soups using an immersion/hand blender. you can use a normal stand up blender but you may have to blend in small batches, and open the top of the blender to let some of the heat out whilst blending. Or, maybe letting the soup cool completely before blending may be most appropriate and safer.

Now for the recipe:GO!

Ingredients

• 3tbsp oil
• 1 large onion, diced
• 250g chestnut mushrooms, sliced
• 300g carrots, unpeeled & diced
• 100g dried red lentils
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped or 1 tsp garlic granules
• 1 mushroom stock cube
• 1 french onion stock cube
• 1.2 litres/6 cups of boiling water
• 1 medium potato, cut into large cubes
• Salt and pepper

You may also like to add 600-800ml of extra stock at the end of the cooking to thin out the soup. I prefer a thinner, more drinkable soup so i added extra veg stock in at the end of the recipe.

Method

Pour the oil into a large stock pot/pan and place it over a medium heat to warm the oil. Tip in the onions and mushrooms and sweat them for 5 minutes till the onions are translucent and the mushrooms are fragrant, stir a few times to ensure they dont stick to the bottom of the pot. Add the diced carrots and potatoes and cook for another 5 minutes, stiring regularly. Next add the lentils and garlic, again, stiring regularly. Once the garlic hars just started to brown, Pour in the boiling water and add the stock cubes, stir well to disolve. Bring it all to a boil and then turn down the heat to a gentle simmer. Let it simmer until the potatoes, carrots and lentils are all cooken. mine took around 15 minutes*. Take the pot of of the heat and blend with an immersion blender till smooth**.  Taste and add salt and pepper. Reheat if necessary. ENJOY!

*It may take longer, depending on how large youve chopped your veggies

**If you prefer a thinner soup, now is the time to add the extra stock, I used 800ml of veg stock, but just plain water would also work.

‘Chuna’

So, what is chuna? It is simply a recipe using chickpeas that tastes similar tuna. I never liked that ‘fishy’ taste as a whole but before I became vegan I did on the rare occasion have tuna on a jacket potato or in a sandwich. So I decided to recreate the taste using chickpeas and nori. The easiest way to get the sea taste is with nori, being seaweed it has the saltiness needed to replicate those ‘fishy’ notes.

Chickpeas work great in this recipe as they can mash well with a fork without becoming too mushy. I’m sure that if you didn’t have chickpeas, other beans should work, they may just alter the texture slightly. I like this recipe slightly chunky so mashing with a fork is my preference, but you could easily use a food processor to roughly chop up the chickpeas.. be careful though, for this recipe you don’t want to make houmous so go easy on the processing!
In my chuna I use tamari to keep it gluten free, if you don’t have tamari then use soy sauce it doesn’t alter the flavour at all so it’s all good!

As I mentioned above, this recipe is amazing in a jacket potato but I also love it in a sandwich with salad or even dolloped in a big bowl of pasta. I make my chuna using a little vinegar as that is what I used to mix with tuna, but you could use vegan mayo or salad cream. Your choice!

Ingredients

• 1 can (400g) chickpeas
• 2 nori sheets (shred fine, I used scissors)
• 5 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 2 tsp tamari/soy sauce
• Pepper to taste

Recipe
Drain chickpeas and tip them into a bowl. Smash the chickpeas with a fork until they are your desired consistency. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well to combine. Serve.