Yaki-Gyoza / Potstickers

Recipe: Yaki-Gyoza / Potstickers焼き餃子 / 锅贴

Yields: 20 pcs

Ingredients

Gyoza Wrappers 125g wheat flour & additional for dusting 50ml lukewarm water + 30ml water pinch of salt Dipping Sauce 4 TBSP light soy sauce 2 TBSP rice vinegar

Filling 180g ground pork ¼ cup finely chopped sweet onion ¼ cup finely chopped carrot 1 clove garlic; minced ¾ tsp. sesame oil 1 TBSP rice vinegar (sushi rice vinegar) 1½ TBSP light soy sauce ½ TBSP water 1 tsp. corn starch

Measurements: tsp. = teaspoon | TBSP = tablespoon

Gyoza Wrappers
1. Put flour and salt in a mixing bowl or a deep dish.	2. Stir in 50ml lukewarm water. Then, gradually stir in remaining water. Mix mixture with a metal spoon until mixture resembles coarse meal.	3. Knead dough with hand until you get a smooth. Cover dough with damp tea towel and let rest for 15 minutes.
4. Using a rolling pin, roll dough into about 0.01cm thick sheet.	5. With a 3-inch round cookie cutter, makes about 20 rounds.	6. Combine all the remnants and repeat rolling and cutting into rounds process.
7. Cover gyoza wrappers with cling wrap until ready to use.
Preparation
1. Mix filling in a mixing bowl. Cover bowl with cling wrap and let filling marinate in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.	2. Pour some flour into a large clean baking pan. This pan will be used to put the wrapped gyoza later. Flour on the pan will prevent gyoza from sticking to the baking pan and helps to make the bottom of gyoza to be more crispy when cook later.	3. Place approximately 1 tablespoon of filling in the center of each wrapper.
4. Moisten the edge of a wrapper with a dab of water.	5. Fold wrapper in half over filling. Pinch to seal one end for about ½-inch. Then, start to pleat and fold.	6. Make 4 to 6 pleats at about ½-inch interval. Press and seal any opening.
7. A gyoza is wrapped.	8. Repeat steps 4 to 6 for the rest. Place wrapped gyoza on the floured baking pan.	9. Heat up 1 TBSP oil in a skillet over medium high heat. Arrange as many gyoza as you can in the skillet. Cook gyoza over medium high heat for about 1 minute, until bottoms lightly browned.
10. Add some water to the gyoza in skillet.	11. Water level is about one third of the height of gyoza.	12. Cover with lid and cook gyoza over medium high heat for 5 to 6 minutes, until water start to sizzle.
13. Remove lid when you start to hear the sizzling sound. Let gyoza cook until water vaporized.	14. Immediately drizzle ½ TBSP oil or sesame oil over the gaps and empty edges. Tilt skillet to spread oil to the bottoms of gyoza.	15. Cover and cook for 1 to 2 minutes until bottoms of gyoza turn brown. Turn off the heat. Remove gyoza from the skillet with spatula.
16. Arrange gyoza browned side up on a serving platter. Mix dipping sauce. Serve yaki-gyoza with dipping sauce.

Notes

Wheat flour can be substituted with all-purpose flour. Gyoza wrappers are slightly thicker than wonton wrappers. However, you can use wonton wrappers as gyoza wrappers. Get a package of gyoza wrappers or wonton wrappers from Asian store if you are lazy to DIY. Use a cookie cutter to cut wonton wrappers into rounds.

Steamed Herbal Chicken

Recipe: Steamed Herbal Chicken药材鸡

Serves: 2 - 3

Ingredients

2 pcs chicken leg quarter (600g) 2 TBSP barbary wolfberry / goji berry (枸杞) Ingedients A 4g dried pilose asiabell root (党参) 12g dried angelica sinensis slice (当归) 15g dried polygonthemum (玉竹) 4 red dates; halve or halve but do not cut through (红枣) ½ cup + ¼ cup water

Marinade 2 TBSP ShaoXing cooking wine 1 to 2 small drops sesame oil (*optional) ¼ tsp. + 1/8 tsp. salt ½ tsp. light soy sauce ¼ tsp. oyster sauce

Measurements: tsp. = teaspoon | TBSP = tablespoon

Preparation
1. Rinse all herbs of ingredients A. Bring ingredients A to a boil in a small stockpot. Reduce heat to low and continue to simmer for 10 minutes. Heat off. Allow ingredients A to cool completely.	2. Clean chicken. Cut chicken into serving pieces and put them in a mixing bowl.	3. Add the marinade to chicken.
4. Mix the marinade evenly and "massage" the chicken with hand.	5. Add ingredients A to chicken. Mix evenly. Cover mixing bowl with aluminium foil and let chicken marinate in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes if possible.	6. Take chicken out from the refrigerator. Roughly toss chicken in mixing bowl. Then, transfer chicken together with its maride to a microwavable deep serving plate.
7. Cover plate with aluminium foil. Alternatively, you can wrap chicken in aluminium foil, then put the wrapped chicken on a microwavable plate.	8. Heat up steamer. Steam chicken over high heat for 30 minutes until chicken is cooked. Serve hot.

Notes

You can leave ingredients A to marinate chicken together with the marinade if you don't want to pre-boil them. Wrap ingredients with aluminium foil and let them marinate for at least 1 hour.

Lotus Root N Chicken Feet Soup

Recipe: Lotus Root N Chicken Feet Soup莲藕凤爪汤

Serves: 2 - 3

Ingredients

1000ml water 150g chicken feet 100g pork bones or chicken bones 200g lotus root (peeled & sliced) 1 to 2 dried red dates (washed & halved) 1 TBSP dried mussels salt to taste

Measurements: tsp. = teaspoon | TBSP = tablespoon

Preparation
1. Wash and drain all ingredients. Halve red dates. Cut lotus root into about 1cm thick slices, then rinse lotus root slices with water. Chop off the claw tips from chicken feet.	2. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the bones and chicken feet to boiling water and boil for 3 minutes. Drain feet and bones with a strainer then rinse with cold water and set aside.	3. Fill stockpot with 1000ml water and bring to a boil. Add red date and lotus root to boiling water. Reduce heat to low when it comes to a boil again.
4. Loosely cover stockpot with lid, continue to simmer lotus root for 30 minutes over low heat.	5. Add the bones, chicken feet, and dried mussels to stockpot. Cover with lid, and continue to cook for 2 - 3 hours over low heat.	6. Skim off any scum or froth appears on the surface with a spoon. Season soup with salt to taste. Serve hot.

Office Guy Bento

Recipe: Office Guy Bento办公男弁当

Ingredients

red fermented bean curd fried chicken tomato slices blanched broccoli potato mixed salad cooked white rice or sushi rice nori sheet yellow turmeric rice (long grain rice + water + turmeric powder + pandan leaves) red part of immitation crabstick (blush) 1/8 tsp. honey

Measurements: tsp. = teaspoon | TBSP = tablespoon

Preparation
1. Sketch the look and features (hair, eyes, mouth etc) of office guy on a piece of paper. Stack a piece of nori sheet below the sketch, then cut out the sketch together with nori sheet. Size of the head on my sketch is the exact size of cookie cutter in step 3.	2. Cook turmeric rice using normal rice cooking method.	3. Place a round cookie cutter on a piece of nori sheet. Nori sheet should be able to cover the side edge of the hair area and also able to cover bottom side of the whole head.
4. Scoope white rice into the cookie cutter and press with a metal spoon while rice is still hot. The depth is about 1-inch.	5. Gently remove cookie cutter. Cover the top of white rice with a piece of cling wrap. Then, shape the top edges into rounded corner. Remove cling wrap and set aside.	6. Place the hair piece on office guy. Press to stick on rice.
7. Next, place eyes, glasses, and mouth in position, then press to stick.	8. Seal the side edges of hair area with nori. Then, cut off any excess nori. Cover head with the cling wrap used in step 5.	9. Move on to the body part. Repeat step 3 and 4 for body part. Then, wrap rice with a piece of cling wrap and shape rice into body shape as shown in the photo. Cut out a neck tie from nori sheet then stick tie to the correct position.
10. Cut out a pair of blush from the red part of immitation crabstick by using a straw.	11. Stick body and head together while rice is still warm. Then, glue the blush to the correct position using honey. Office guy onigiri is ready.	12. Cover half of a square container with some yellow turmeric rice.
13. Transfer office guy onigiri to place on top of turmeric rice very carefully. Then, add blached broccoli and silicone baking cups to cover the empty side, leaving some space for the red fermented bean curd fried chicken.	14. Place tomato slices as divider in the center. Fill the silicone cups with potato mixed salad.	15. Cut red fermented bean curd fried chicken into strips.
16. Finally, place chicken to the reserved space. Office guy bento is completed.