Our good friend Ren Navarro of Beer. Diversity. introduced us to Aman Dosanj also known as The Paisley Notebook on Instagram. She has a line of spice mixtures called Edible Adventures that can be purchased online here. She will ship anywhere in Canada, and we highly recommend trying it.
This recipe is a fusion of Indian and Japanese cuisine. Gyoza are Japanese style dumplings with some sort of meat or vegetable filling. In this case, we decided to use one of Aman's Kadhai spice packs in a mushroom mixture. According to the package, her Kadhai spice pack contains, "fennel seed, cumin seed, coriander seed, black peppercorn, dried red chili and no weird stuff."
Depending on how adventurous you want to be you can make your own Gyoza dough or purchase some pre-made circular wonton wrappers, available at most supermarkets. If you are interested in making your Gyoza dough, this is a great recipe, and it's the one we used to make ours. But this recipe is all about the filling:
Ingredients
3 lbs assorted mushrooms (a pound each of shitake, oyster and king oyster)
3 cloves garlic
Half a red onion sliced or diced
1 tbsp avocado oil for cooking
Pinch of flaked chilies
1/3 can Helles Island Lager
Cooking Instructions
1. If you have a cast iron pan, it works best, but any heavy bottom pan will work. Heat your pan over medium high heat and add the avocado oil. Toss in your garlic and cook until it's a golden colour.
2. Add your onions and mix with a pinch of salt. You want to cook them until they are translucent, or as Aman says, "kind of like a ghost but less scary".
3. Add the mushrooms and cook well. Aman says, "mushrooms should always be cooked".
4. Sprinkle in some Kadhai Spice to taste. Tasting is important at this stage. Start with a little and add spice until you like the taste. You can always add more, but you can't remove it if you add too much. Aman also recommends that "spices need just the right amount of salt for their superpowers to kick in".
5. You can add the flaked chilies at this point and stir them in.
6. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
7. Once you've made your filling you can start making the Gyoza dumplings. It's much easier than you think. This video does an impressive job showing you how it's done. Wish I had watched this before I made mine!
8. Once they are all made, add some oil to a pan that you can add a lid to. Place each of the gyoza in the pan and cook over medium high heat to brown the bottom. After about 2 minutes they should be brown enough. Add a cup of water (or Helles Island Lager) to the pan and cover with a lid until it starts to boil. Leave the lid on for another minute or two. Remove the lid and allow the water to boil off. Once all the water is gone, the dumplings should be fully cooked.
9. Plate and serve with a big glass of Helles Island Lager.
Many thanks to Aman Dosanj for these great spices and recipe idea. Give her a follow-on Instagram and grab some of her amazing spice blends for yourself, they are great!
For more great Cooking With Beer Recipes, take a look at our recipe archive.