Author: Allison

Later this week Allison’s going to be making some gyoza, but today we’re bringing you her brand new sous chef – Shrimpy!

You can absolutely use store-bought gyoza wrappers, but today Shrimpy’s here to teach you how to make them from scratch!

We’re using a recipe from Andrea Nguyen’s Asian Dumplings cookbook, which is our absolute FAVORITE dumpling cookbook.

Enjoy… and let us know if you want more Shrimpy videos!

Dumpling dough

from Asian Dumplings

Ingredients

• 10 oz (2 cups) all-purpose flour
• about 3/4 cup just-boiled water

Cooking Directions

1. To prepare the dough in a food processor, put the flour in the work bowl. With the machine running, add 3/4 cup water in a steady stream through the feed tube. As soon as all the water has been added, stop the machine and check the dough. It should look rough and feel soft but firm enough to hold its shape when pinched. If necessary, add water by the teaspoon or flour by the tablespoon. When satisfied, run the machine for another 5 to 10 seconds to further knead and form a ball around the blade. Avoid overworking the dough.
2. Alternatively, make the dough by hand. Put a bowl atop a kitchen towel to prevent it from slipping while you work. Put the flour in the bowl and make a well in the center. Use a wooden spoon or bamboo rice paddle to stir the flour while you add 3/4 cup water in a steady stream. Aim to evenly moisten the flour. It is okay to pause to stir or add water – it is hard to simultaneously do both actions. When all the water has been added, you will have lots of lumpy bits. Knead the dough in the bowl (it is not terribly hot) to bring all the lumps into one mass; if the dough does not come together easily, add water by the teaspoon.
3. Regardless of the mixing method, transfer the dough and any bits to a work surface; flour your work surface only if necessary, and then sparingly. Knead the dough with the heel of your hand for about 30 seconds for machine-made dough, or about 2 minutes for handmade dough. The result should be nearly smooth and somewhat elastic; press on the dough; it should slowly bounce back, with a light impression of your finger remaining. Place the dough in a zip-top plastic bag and seal tightly closed, expelling excess air. Set aside to rest at room temperature for at least 15 minutes and up to 2 hours. The dough will steam up the plastic bag and become earlobe soft, which makes wrappers easy to work with.
4. After resting, the dough can be used right away to form the wrappers. Or, refrigerate it overnight and return it to room temperature before using.
5. Remove the dough from the bag, turning the bag inside out if the dough is sticky. Put the dough on a lightly floured work surface and cut it in half. Put half back in the bag, squeezing out the air and sealing it closed to prevent drying.
6. Roll the dough into a 1″-thick log, and then cut it into the number of pieces required by the recipe. To cut even pieces, quarter the log first; the tapered end pieces should be cut a little longer than the rest. Weigh each piece of dough to be super precise, if you like. If your dough pieces are oval shaped, stand each one on a cut end and use your fingers to gently squeeze it into a round. The resulting squat cylinder resembles a scallop. This bit of advance work makes it easier to form a nice circle in the remaining steps.
7. To prevent the dough from sticking and to flatten it a bit, take each piece of dough and press one of the cut ends in flour, then flip it over and do the same on the other end; the dough can be sticky. You should end up with a disk roughly 1/4″ thick. As you work, set the floured disks to one side of your work area.
8. Next, flatten each dough disk into a thin circle that is about 1/8″ thick, either with a tortilla press or with a heavy, flat-bottomed object. If you are using the tortilla press, open the press and lay a plastic square on the bottom plate. Center a disk of floured dough and cover with the other plastic square. Close the top plate, then fold the pressure handle over the top plate and press down. Use moderate pressure and press only once, or the resulting wrapper will stick to the plastic and be hard to remove.
9. Fold back the pressure handle, open the top plate, and peel off the top plastic square. Then gently peel the wrapper off the bottom plastic square. Should the wrapper feel tacky, lightly swipe both sides on some flour before placing on the work surface.
10. Without the torilla press, put the floured disk between the plastic squares and press down with a heavy object to produce a circle about 1/8″ thick. You may have to press more than once. Gently peel back the plastic from the wrapper.
11. Regardless of method, repeat with the remaining dough pieces, setting them to one side of your work area as you finish them. It is okay to overlap the wrappers slightly.
12. To finish the wrappers, take a wrapper and place it on the work surface, flouring the surface only as needed to keep the dough from sticking. Imagine a quarter-size circle in the center. This is what the Chinese call the “belly” of the wrapper. You want to create a wrapper that is larger than its current size but retains a thick belly. This ensures an even distribution of dough after the wrapper’s edge has been gathered and closed around the filling.
13. To keep a thick belly, use the rolling pin to apply pressure on the outer 1/2 – 3/4″ border of the wrapper, as follows. Try to roll the rolling pin with the flat palm of one hand while using the other hand to turn the wrapper in the opposite direction. For example, as your right palm works the rolling pin in short, downward strokes from the center toward your body, the fingers of your left hand turn the disk counterclockwise about 1/4 of a turn between each stroke. Keep the thumb of the rotating hand near the center of the wrapper to guide the rolling pin and turn the wrapper.
14. If the wrapper sticks to the work surface or rolling pin, pause to dust the wrapper with flour and then continue. If you cannot get a wrapper thin enough on the first try, set it aside to relax for about 1 minute, and then roll again. Should the wrapper tear or be hopelessly misshapen, roll up the dough, let it rest for a few minutes, then press it again and roll it out. Resembling a flat fried egg, the finished wrapper does not need to be a perfect circle. Frilly edges are fine. The finished diameter of the wrapper depends on the dumpling, and each recipe provides an ideal size.
15. As you work, line up the finished wrappers on your work surface; if you need extra space, use a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and dusted with flour. A bit of overlapping is fine, but avoid stacking the wrappers. When a batch of wrappers is formed, fill them before making wrappers out of the other portion of dough, or the wrappers may stick together as they wait for you. Use the instructions in the recipe to fill, shape, and cook the dumplings.

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When I was browsing through the Aloha Kitchen cookbook, it was such a challenge to pick a protein to go with my mac salad!

Do I go with chashu? Spam? Maybe some mochiko chicken, or beef teriyaki? So many good choices, so little time!

I ended up choosing this shoyu chicken, because it’s got everything I want in a recipe:

• I already have all the ingredients on hand, and they’re easy to find
• it’s an easy, mostly hands-off recipe
• and it looks tasty!

We’ll start by braising the chicken.

As the name suggests, the main sauce ingredient is shoyu, or Japanese soy sauce.

A good bit of water, to thin out the sauce – otherwise it’ll be super salty.

Honey and brown sugar for sweetness.

A bit of sliced ginger.

And a few cloves of garlic. Since they’re just smashed, we’ll use whole fresh cloves this time.

Nestle your bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs into the sauce, and bring it to a boil.

Add in some sweet Maui onion wedges, and green onion pieces.

And it’s time for a hot girl simmer!

Let the chicken simmer for an hour, flipping halfway through.

Then we’ll broil the chicken, just really quick, to get a nice brown on the skin.

While the chicken is broiling, we’ll add a bit of cornstarch to the sauce, and cook it a little longer, to get a nice thick sauce to serve with the chicken.

And there you have it! Serve with white rice, and that mac salad we made last time, and you’ve got a perfect plate lunch.

Shoyu Chicken

from the Aloha Kitchen cookbook

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup shoyu
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• one 2″ piece ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
• 2 or 3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
• 2 lbs bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
• 1/2 Maui onion, peeled and cut into 3/4″ wedges
• 2 or 3 green onions, white and green parts, cut into 2″ pieces
• 1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
• 3 cups steamed rice, for serving

Cooking Directions

1. In a heavy Dutch oven or pot, mix the shoyu, water, honey, brown sugar, ginger, and garlic together. Nestle the chicken thighs in the sauce, skin-side up, submerging the meat as much as possible. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat. When the sauce comes to a boil, add the Maui onion wedges and green onion pieces and turn the heat to a medium-low. Cover the pot with a lid and let simmer for 30 minutes. Using a pair of kitchen tongs, gently turn all the chicken pieces over. Cover the pot again and simmer for another 30 minutes. Check the tenderness of the meat with a fork; if you can easily insert the fork into the meat, the chicken is done. Remove the cooked thighs from the sauce, reserving it, and place them on a rimmed baking sheet.
2. Preheat the broiler.
3. In a small bowl, whisk the cornstarch with 1/4 cup of the sauce until smooth, then add the cornstarch mixture back to the pot with the remaining sauce and cook over medium heat for 4 to 5 minutes, until the sauce has thickened. Broil the chicken thighs for a minute or two, watching carefully to make sure you do not burn the skin. The goal is to just quickly brown the skin.
4. Serve the chicken with the thickened sauce and rice.

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When I did the Aloha Kitchen cookbook redemption a few weeks ago, I had a really difficult time choosing between recipes. Do I do something with spam? Or something sweet? And how could I possibly pass up making a plate lunch?

While I ended up picking the ginger misoyaki butterfish for the redemption, I was still left with a whole list of other recipes I wanted to try from the cookbook – and a plate lunch was at the top of the list!

And what’s the best part of Hawaiian plate lunches? The mac salad, obviously. (Ya grill is a double-mac kinda gal.)

We’ll start with the most vital part of mac salad… the macaroni! Boil it in salted water, until tender – not just al dente. We want the macaroni soft, but not mushy.

Next, the secret to a good mac salad – a little bit of grated onion. If you can get a Maui onion or sweet onion, that would be ideal! But if not, a yellow onion will work fine here.

Once the macaroni has cooled a bit, mix in your grated onion.

Best Foods or Hellmann’s mayonnaise, depending on where you live. No Miracle Whip or Kewpie for this recipe.

Sweet pickle juice and sweet pickle relish for a bit of tang.

And finish it off with salt and fresh ground pepper.

Mix it all together, and then refrigerate. But we’re not done!

When you’re ready to serve the mac salad, mix in more mayonnaise to taste – you don’t want a dry mac salad! – and some grated carrot for texture.

Serve as a side to any sort of meat, fish, or veggie dish, with rice.

And stay tuned for the next recipe, where we’ll be making shoyu chicken to round out our plate lunch!

Mac Salad

from the Aloha Kitchen cookbook

Ingredients

• 8 oz elbow macaroni
• 2 tbsp kosher salt
• 2 tbsp grated Maui or yellow onion (roughly 1/4 whole onion)
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups Best Foods (or Hellmann’s) mayonnaise
• 2 tbsp sweet pickle juice
• 3 tbsp sweet pickle relish
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup coarsely grated carrot (1/2 medium carrot)

Cooking Directions

1. Cook the macaroni, salting the water with the kosher salt, accourding to the instructions on the package, until very tender, not al dente. Drain and transfer to a large bowl. Let cool slightly for 10 minutes, then add the onion, 1/2 cup of the mayonnaise, the pickle juice, relish, and pepper to taste and toss until well coated. Taste and season as needed with salt and pepper. Chill for 1 hour.
2. When ready to serve, stir in 1/2 cup of the mayonnaise and the carrot; add more mayonnaise if it looks dry. Taste and adjust the seasoning as needed. Serve chilled.

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I never had fresh figs, growing up. They were just never a part of our dining repertoire. Fig Newtons – of course! But I had never eaten a fresh fig.

It wasn’t until I was in my 20s, and happened to receive figs as part of a CSA box, that I tried them for the first time.

CSA means community-supported agriculture, and a CSA box is a box filled with fruits and vegetables that they put together for their subscribers every week or so. A lot of the time, CSA boxes are comprised of whatever the farm happens to have that week – which means you can end up with a lot of produce you might not ordinarily purchase.

Not knowing what to do with figs when they showed up in my CSA box, I turned to the internet – and all the recipes I’d bookmarked from blog posts over the years.

And back then, this fig tart recipe from Sophisticated Gourmet caught my eye.

This time around, I was once again surprised by figs – but this time they came from my brother and sister-in-law’s garden. A whole container of figs showed up at my door, with the instruction to eat them soon so they don’t go bad!

I could eat them raw, but… I’ve got a YouTube channel! And I couldn’t turn down the chance to make something with them!

This recipe is super, super simple.

You start with puff pastry. If you’re fancy and just happen to have homemade puff pastry in the freezer, or want to make some for this, be my guest! But I’m using store-bought. Let it sit out at room temperature for about half an hour, but not much longer – just thaw it enough to unfold it.

Cut the puff pastry into squares – you could do four bigger squares, but I found cutting it into 9 smaller squares resulted in perfectly snack-sized tarts.

Next we’re going to cut the figs. Make sure you wash your figs well – I’ve been told the sap from the trees can cause chemical burns, although I certainly haven’t tested that theory myself. Then remove the stems and quarter them.

Sprinkle your puff pastry squares with a little sugar – if you have vanilla sugar, that would be lovely here.

Then arrange four fig quarters on each square.

Sprinkle the figs with a little brown sugar.

Then bake them at 400F for 15 minutes.

Serve with ice cream or whipped cream, and enjoy!

They’re light, flaky, not too sweet, and such an easy way to take advantage of summer produce! You could easily switch these out for just about any type of fruit – berries, stone fruit, apples, bananas, even jackfruit would be great.

Fig tarts

slightly adapted from Sophisticated Gourmet

Ingredients

• 1 sheet store-bought puff pastry
• 1 tsp granulated sugar
• 9 ripe figs, quartered
• 1 tsp brown sugar

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Roll out the pastry and cut into 9 squares, then place onto the lined cookie sheet.
3. Evenly sprinkle the top of each square with the granulated sugar, and top each square with a quartered fig.
4. Lightly sprinkle brown sugar over the figs.
5. Bake 15 minutes, until the pastry is puffed and golden brown. Let cool.
6. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream, if desired. Enjoy!

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Despite being half Japanese, black sesame in desserts did not feature strongly in my childhood. Mochi and anko, white sesame and even shoyu… But it wasn’t until I was in my 20s that I had my first black sesame dessert.

Way back in 2012, I started a podcast called Miso Hungry with my friend Rachael – aka La Fuji Mama. She’d spent a lot of time in Japan, and even lived there for a while, and could not stop raving about black sesame desserts.

With that (black sesame) seed planted in my mind, it’s no surprise that a kurogoma purin sitting innocently in a refrigerator case next to the bakery at Marukai caught my eye on the way to Rachael’s house one day – which is how I ended up buying enough for all of us to try.

Wonderful friend that she is, when she saw how much I adored that black sesame pudding she decided she was going to develop a kurogoma purin recipe for me… and that’s how this recipe came to be.

A few weeks ago, when we were filming the furikake nori, the scent of blended black sesame made me crave black sesame desserts.

And whenever I’m craving black sesame desserts, this is the one I turn to – but I’m trying something a little different this time.

Did you know gelatin isn’t vegetarian? It’s actually derived from collagen from animal parts – which means our vegan and vegetarian friends can’t eat it.

Instead, I wanted to try using agar agar, which is derived from seaweed and works similarly to gelatin.

Obviously I had to make a batch of both, for a true comparison, right? This definitely wasn’t just an excuse to make more pudding.

Step one – if you’re using powdered gelatin, you need to hydrate it before you use it in your pudding, otherwise it will clump and not gel correctly. Sprinkle it over some cold water. I made the mistake of using a small bowl – it would be better to use a wider bowl or plate with more surface area, so you can make sure all of the gelatin comes into contact with the water.

If you’re using agar agar, skip this step – we’ll add the agar agar later on.

Next, prepare your kurogoma – black sesame seeds. You could use a coffee or spice grinder for this, but we’re using a food processor today. Grind your black sesame seeds with a little sugar – the sugar helps the sesame seeds grind evenly, much like adding salt when you grind something using a mortar and pestle.

Once that’s all evenly ground, it’s time to make our pudding. Transfer your ground black sesame seeds to a pot. Then add milk and more sugar. Bring it to a boil, continuously stirring to prevent burning.

Once it boils, add your softened gelatin, and stir until thoroughly combined.

If you’re using agar instead, this is when you should stir in your agar agar powder, making sure it’s all mixed in.

Remove the saucepan from the heat, and stir in the heavy cream.

At this point, you want your pudding to cool to room temperature. You can put it in an ice bath, but make sure not to get any water in it!

Once the pudding has cooled, you can optionally whip it a bit to make the pudding lighter. If you used agar, it may have already started gelling by now, because agar agar gels at a much higher temperature than gelatin, so whipping it a bit will make it easier to transfer.

Ladle the pudding into containers, and refrigerate for at least four hours.

If you’d like, you can serve with a little whipped cream – and enjoy!

We loved the pudding both ways – the agar is a little firmer, and since it thickens faster, the black sesame powder is suspended in the pudding, rather than sinking to the bottom as it does in the gelatin pudding.

The gelatin version is creamy and soft, like you would expect from pudding. Black sesame gives it a nutty, earthy flavor, and it’s not too sweet.

The agar agar version is firm, moreso than jello would be. But it would be a great add-in for a boba-type drink, similar to other jellies that are often used.

We can’t decide which is our favorite – we keep flipflopping between versions, because they’re both tasty! Which do you think you would prefer?

Black sesame pudding

slightly adapted from La Fuji Mama

Ingredients

• 1 packet (.25 ounces) powdered gelatin
• 1 1/2 tbsp cold water

or

• 2 tsp powdered agar agar

• 1/3 cup toasted black sesame seeds
• 1 tbsp granulated sugar
• 2 1/2 cups milk
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup whipping cream

Cooking Directions

1. If using gelatin, put the cold water in a bowl with a wide base, and sprinkle the powdered gelatin over the top of the water. Set aside to soften.
2. Place the sesame seeds and 1 tbsp sugar in a blender or food processor and grind until sandy.
3. In a medium-sized saucepan, mix the ground sesame, milk, and 1/2 cup sugar together. Heat over medium heat, stirring constantly to prevent the milk from burning. As soon as the mixture comes to a boil, add the softened gelatin OR powdered agar agar and stir to melt and combine. Remove the saucepan from the heat and whisk in the cream.
4. Fill a large bowl halfway with ice, then cover the ice with cold water. Pour the pudding into a slightly smaller bowl, and carefully place the bowl into the ice water, taking care not to spill any water into the pudding. Whisk the pudding briefly, then leave to cool for 5 minutes.
5. Set out clean containers to pour the pudding into. I used 12 1/3-cup containers, but you may use fewer containers depending on the size.
6. After cooling, optionally whip the pudding for about 5 minutes (this whisking will produce a lighter pudding), then equally divide the pudding between the prepared containers. Cover the containers and place in the refrigerator to set up for a minimum of 4 hours, or until firm. Serve cold, topped with a bit of whipped cream if desired.

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Spinach and chickpeas. Sounds like kind of a boring dish, right? But the whole is so much more than the sum of its parts.

This used to be my favorite after-workout, quick, easy, healthy, tasty, satisfying meal. I’d come home from a late aerial or pole class, pop this in the toaster oven (thank goodness for auto-off timers!), take a quick shower, and by the time I was out it would be done.

I’d have a meal that’s filling enough to be satisfying, healthy and filled with (vegetarian) protein, yet not so heavy that it would keep me up with heartburn or a bloated belly.

It starts with two cans of chickpeas. Drain them – but save that liquid! It’s called aquafaba, and it’s an excellent vegan egg replacement for baked goods.

Drain and rinse your chickpeas, then pop them in a baking dish. I use an 8×8″ glass dish.

Then top it with a couple of big handfuls of spinach. Just pack as much as you can in there, because you know how spinach shrinks.

Drizzle that with olive oil, and sprinkle it with salt and pepper.

Bake at 425F for 15 minutes, and it’s done!

Depending on how hungry you are, you can optionally top it with a fried egg. I do that when I eat the leftovers for breakfast the next morning.

NOT optional is the dried radish kimchi (but you can totally sub that with other kimchi or sriracha or something). You need that kick of flavor and spice to really take this dish to the next level.

For us, this is about 4 servings – Son and I will eat half the night I make it, and then split the rest (with fried eggs) the next morning for breakfast.

I know it sounds too simple to be true… but with that dried radish kimchi we made last time, I really really adore this dish!

Spinach and Chickpeas

adapted from What’s Cooking Good Looking

Ingredients

• 2 15-oz cans chickpeas
• 6 – 8 oz spinach
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper
• fried eggs (optional)
• dried radish kimchi

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 425F.
2. Drain and rinse the chickpeas (freeze the aquafaba for another use). Pour them into an 8×8″ baking dish.
3. Top the chickpeas with the spinach. Drizzle with olive oil, and then sprinkle with salt and pepper.
4. Bake for 15 minutes. Top with fried eggs and the dried radish kimchi. Enjoy!

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We were first introduced to this specific type of kimchi at Market World – a Korean grocery store that we’ve been frequenting for the last few years.

We used to go there often, and stock up on all sorts of kimchi and other banchan. At the time we were busy with a lot of client work and didn’t have much chance to cook, so this was a super easy way to put together tasty, healthy meals.

This kimchi was one that we bought again and again… and finally I decided it was time to try making it myself.

First you rinse and soak the dried radish strips, to rehydrate them.

Then, squeeze the liquid out of them and saute them in a little olive oil for a minute to dry them out.

This soaking and drying process may seem unintuitive, but it takes leathery dried radish strips, and makes them crunchy and pleasant to eat.

Next, make the sauce! Garlic, green onions, gochugaru, sesame seeds, fish sauce, and rice syrup all come together to make a sweet, spicy, ever so satisfyingly umami flavor.

Mix it all together, and your dried radish kimchi is ready to eat!

Dried Radish Kimchi

from Maangchi

Ingredients

• 5 oz dried radish strips
• 1 tsp vegetable oil
• 6 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 green onions, chopped
• 6 tbsp gochugaru
• 4 tsp toasted sesame seeds
• 4 tbsp fish sauce
• 6 tbsp rice syrup

Cooking Directions

1. Wash and drain the dried radish strips in cold water a few times. Soak in cold water for 7-8 minutes.
2. Strain and squeeze out excess water.
3. Heat a pan over medium high heat and sauté the dried radish strips with 1 tsp vegetable oil for 1 minute. Remove from heat and set aside.
4. Combine garlic, green onion, gochugaru, sesame seeds, fish sauce, and rice syrup in a mixing bowl and mix well.
5. Add the dried radish strips and mix well by hand.
6. Serve as a side dish with rice. The dried radish kimchi can be stored in the fridge for up to 1 month.

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