You can buy ready made gyoza dumpling wrappers as they are tricky to make. Strong flour is used as it is higher in the protein, gluten which helps the wrappers stretch as you roll out the balls of dough.
Handy tip – watch a Youtube video to see how to mix and roll – this dough is tricky to master! It has taken me 3 attempts to get sorted.
Makes 12-14 wrappers for 12-14 gyozas
Vegan gyozas with soya dip
Ingredients
200g strong flour salt
salt
About 100 ml boiling water
Cornflour for dusting the work surface
Filling
Filling
Vegan Filling
3cm of ginger peeled and grated 20g
Soya sauce 1tbs 15ml
Miso paste 1 tsp
Very finely chopped pieces of a range of vegetables – red pepper, cauliflower, cabbage, spring onion, mushroom, beansprouts
15g frozen peas
Toasted sesame seeds, 1 tbs
Soya sauce 1-2 tbs
Miso paste tsp 20g
Toasted sesame oil 1 tsp
Method
Put the flour and salt in a bowl.
Gradually stir in the boiling water with a spatula and work with your hands to form a dough. You may need more or less water, depending on the dryness of the flour.
Knead for 5 minutes then roll into a log about 3 cm diameter and cut in half. Use cornflour to stop the dough sticking.
Wrap in cling film and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes – this is needed to let the gluten relax and develop.
Unwrap the dough. Sprinkle a little cornflour on the work surface and cut each log into 8 equal sized pieces – so 16 in total.
Cover the dough with damp T towel or wet paper towel to stop it drying out.
Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough pieces as thinly as possible, to a 10-12 cm circle on a surface dusted with cornflour. The thinner the skin the crispier the gyoza and the wrapper is less doughy when cooked.
When each circle is complete, put on a plate and cover with a damp cloth. You can freeze or wrap in cling film and store in the fridge for 3-4 days,
Make the filling while the dough is resting. Finely chop all of your choice of vegetables – the total weight is about 250g.
To season stir in the soy sauce, sesame oil, black pepper and some miso paste if used.
To make up the gyoza, take one circle at a time and wet the edges. Fill with the vegetable mixture then seal and pleat like a pastie. Check online to see how it is done.
Heat 1 tbs oil in a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat. When hot, put the gyoza in a single layer, flat side down.
Gyozas frying in a little oil
Cook until the bottom of the gyoza turns golden brown for about 3 minutes.
Lift off the lid to evaporate any remaining water. Add 1 tsp sesame oil around the frying pan.
Cook uncovered until the gyoza is crisp on the bottom.
Lift onto a plate and serve with dipping sauce. For the dipping sauce, combine the sauce ingredients in a small plate and mix all together.
To save gyoza for later, put the gyoza on a baking sheet leaving some space between to keep them from sticking, and put it in freezer. Transfer frozen gyoza into a freezer bag and store in the freezer up to a month. When you use frozen gyoza, do not defrost. Cook while frozen and steam for extra 1-2 minutes.
To make a risotto, the rice needs to be stirred during cooking
Vegan Risotto with yellow and red peppers
Serves 2
Ingredients
1 small red onion, peeled and cut into small pieces, 70g
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
2 tbs vegetable oil
120g risotto or other rice
1/2 cob of sweetcorn, with seeds removed (50g seeds)
1 red and 1 yellow pepper (about 100g) deseeded and cut into chunks
2 tbs vegetable oil
1 tsp vegan bouillon powder or 1 vegan stock cube
400ml boiling water
2 spring onions, washed and finely chopped
Method
Roasted peppers
Fry onion and sweetcorn
Preheat the oven 200C.
Fry the onion and the garlic in a large frying pan over a gentle heat to soften the onion. Stir often and after 5 minutes add the rice.
Put the chunks of pepper in a roasting tin and toss in the oil. Put in the oven and roast for 20 minutes so that the peppers soften and the sugars caramelise, giving some brown edges and added flavour.
Add the sweetcorn seeds to the rice mixture.
Mix the boiling water in a jug with the bouillon powder or stock cube. Stir slowly into the rice mixture, letting the rice absorb the liquid.
Stir and cook the rice for 10-15 minutes until the rice softens. Add the sweetcorn 2 minutes before the end of cooking.
Remove the peppers from the oven and spoon out of the oil, leaving excess oil in the roasting pan.
Gently toss the red and yellow peppers into the rice then taste and add more seasoning if needed.
Sprinkle over the finely chopped spring onions.
To do
Take photos of the dish.
Put the recipe ingredients into the Nutrition Program to look at the nutrition.
This is the food label – the arrow points to the Vegan label.
This is the Food Label – the risotto provides 464 kcal per 350g portion = 23% RI See the allergens and the label Vegan
Write up the method so it is saved on your Recipe Sheet.
The risotto is a well balanced dish but more protein could be added.Taste the risotto and create a star profile to show how it needs improving. This recipe needs extra protein and more flavour and longer cooking.
I’ve made samosas with cucumber chutney – an example from OCR.
Samosa and cucumber chutney evaluation
Comments
Good points about food product
Nice shapes, well cooked, tasty filling
Improvements needed
Some samosas split open and baking was uneven.
Sensory words – descriptors
Easy to hold, spicy, golden, tasty and crisp pastry.
Fill in a chart like the one above.
Then decide on the Sensory Tasting words to use – Descriptors
I’ve chosen – easy to hold, spicy, golden, tasty and crisp pastry.
For the best samosa result that I want, I give each descriptor a mark out of 5.
easy to hold
5/5
spicy
4/5
golden
4/5
tasty
5/5
crisp pastry
5/5
Open the Star Profile in the Nutrition Program to evaluate your results.
Put these marks in the Rating column.
Get 2 or 3 people to taste your samosas and give a mark for each descriptor. Put their name on +Add Taster – the first one is Jenny – that’s me!
My tasters are called Jenny, Ali and Mosha. Enter their marks.
Complete the Evaluations for each Descriptor. Think about the marks the tasters have given.
Export as a jpeg.
You can put this image into your work. The Evaluations on the left show your comments. My samosas need a little more baking and more flavour with some spices.
The Nutrition Program Blog 