To celebrate, well, Friday night, a little Eastern feast with friends. First, a little shopping in Chinatown for essentials like gyoza pastries and plum wine, some Chinese chives and shittake mushrooms. Tesco provided the sushi-grade tuna (ok, tuna steaks)
First up, to prepare
MULLED WINE to drink whilst cooking (A Delia recipe):
Ingredients:
2 bottles Cabernet Sauvignon
2 litres water
1 orange, stuck with cloves
2 lemons, sliced
6 tbsp honey
1 stick cinnamon
1 inch finely grated fresh ginger
2 tbsp brandy
Method:
Add everything to a large saucepan and bring to a simmer. Do not allow it to boil!
Simmer for about 20 minutes, then serve through a sieve if you don't want bits!
Starter
MINCED TURKEY GYOZA
Served with a soy, vinegar, ginger and chilli dip
and/or homemade sweet chilli sauce
This recipe is from the
School of Wok, where I learned some Dim Sum!
Ingredients:
Wonton or gyoza pastries (circular)
For the marinade:
2 tsp sesame oil
salt to taste
2 tbsp light soy sauce
1/2 tsp sugar
For the filling:
500 g minced turkey (you could also use pork)
1/2 bunch coriander. chopped
2 spring onions, thinly sliced
1 inch fresh ginger, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
5 shiitake mushrooms, chopped small
1 bunch Chinese chives, finely chopped
Method:
Mix all the filling ingredients together. Add in the marinade ingredients and mix well with your hands.
To wrap the gyozas, place a tsp or so of filling in the centre of the circular pastry. Then fold over to form a semi circle - you can use some water to stick the pastry together. Then you can fiddle about and try and make a pretty over-lapping shape but essentially you want to end up with a wobbly half moon shape. I would recommend going to a class at the School of Wok to learn this properly from the experts!
To Cook:
You can deep fry for about 5 minutes at 180 degrees, until golden brown.
If you don't have a deep fryer, you can shallow fry quickly on a high heat, then turn down to medium, add in some boiling water (careful now!) to half cover the gyozas and cover with a lid. Steam them for about 10 minutes until all the water has gone, then give them a minute or so to crisp up.
To Serve:
Mix some soy sauce, Chinese vinegar, fresh chopped chilli, and ginger chopped in matchsticks. Dip in and enjoy!
You could also have a homemade chilli sauce - mix up some finely chopped chilli, garlic, a squeeze of lemon, sugar to taste, chopped coriander and rice vinegar.
Main:
TUNA STEAK TATAKI
This was one of my favourite non-tapas dishes that I had in
Barcelona, and have wanted to try it out ever since.
The recipe was taken from a Beef Tataki recipe that I found online somewhere and adapted it to our sushi-grade tuna (or, truthfully, Tesco tuna steak).
Ingredients:
4 tuna steaks (1 per person)
60 ml soy sauce
75 ml Chinese rice wine
1 spring onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tsp sesame oil
salt & pepper to taste
Method:
First make the marinade by combining the soy sauce, rice wine, and sesame oil in a bowl. Pour into a pan and bring to a gentle simmer, then add in your chopped spring onion and garlic. Fry for a few minutes, don't let the onions get too soft. Remove all this from the pan and set aside. Next season the tuna and leave it to rest for 5-10 minutes. In the frying pan, add a splash of extra sesame oil, then sear the tuna steaks evenly on both sides for about a minute, they can remain rare on the inside.
To serve, place each steak on a plate and pour over the marinade.
Side:
PEANUT, CHILLI and GINGER NOODLES
Recipe
here. These worked perfectly with the tuna, adding a nice spicy kick to proceedings.
Dessert:
BANOFFEE SUNDAE
Served with Plum wine
Plum wine from Chinatown went down really well with dessert. I didn't really think we needed any more photos at this point of the evening...!
