seedling: asian inspiration

I'm working most of the week these days, so today was a rare moment for me to be at home, with my family, and free to cook. I asked around to see what everyone felt like, but everyone was nonplussed so I decided to take matters into my own hands. I took to the internet and scoured my favourite new site: taste.com.au. It's a treasure trove of recipes, advice, and general knowledge to do with every kind of cuisine or type of cooking. I started with "A" and I thought that Asian food sounded nice so I decided on 2 dishes: pork and cabbage gyozas and an asian-style chicken soup. I'm yet to make the chicken soup but the gyozas are made and they are pretty damn good if I do say so myself. They taste lovely and light, and the ginger/garlic marinade is really subtle and complementary of the pork. I just served them as a mid-afternoon snack as I thought it would be a bit boring to have a whole meal of just dumplings. Saying that, I made about 45, and they've almost all disappeared between the 3 of us....... It was a bit time consuming constructing all the little packages, but once you get into a rhythm of piling on the mix, wetting the edges and sealing it shut, you lose track of time.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

250g minced pork
2 cups finely shredded wombok
1/2 cup finely chopped garlic chives, plus extra to serve
2 tsp finely grated ginger
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbs sake
1 tbs tamari
2 tsp sesame oil
275g pkt (30) gow gee wrappers
2 tsp peanut oil
1/2 cup (125ml) water
Dipping sauce
2 tbs tamari
2 tbs rice vinegar
2 tbs water
1 tsp sesame oil

Method

Combine the pork, wombok (chinese cabbage), garlic chives, ginger, garlic, sake, tamari and sesame oil in a large bowl. Season with salt and finely ground white pepper.
Place a gow gee wrapper on a clean work surface. Spoon a heaped teaspoonful of pork mixture on to the centre of the wrapper. Brush the edge with a little water and fold over to enclose.
Use your fingertips to pleat the edge 4-5 times. Place on an oven tray lined with baking paper. Repeat with remaining pork mixture and gow gee wrappers.
To make the dipping sauce, combine the tamari, rice vinegar, water and oil in a small bowl.
Heat the peanut oil in a large frying pan over high heat until just smoking. Remove from heat. Arrange the dumplings over the base of the frying pan. Place over medium heat and cook for 1-2 minutes or until bases of gyoza are golden brown. Drizzle the water over the gyoza and cook, covered, for 4-5 minutes or until cooked through and water evaporates. Remove from heat and set aside, uncovered, for 1-2 minutes.
Place the gyoza on a serving platter and sprinkle with garlic chives. Serve immediately with dipping sauce.