For the past year, I’ve managed to stay (mostly) grounded in my location. Somedays that makes me a little crazy (especially when it comes to craving foods from other cuisines.) Fortunately, some of my friends are as foodie minded as I am, so we arranged a Saturday to cook together. We all at one time or another experienced the restaurant Wagamama, a Japanese inspired chain that offers healthy and fast options, including ramen and gyoza. While in London, I bought one of their cookbooks so we used it to whip up some old favorites and new experiments.
Gyoza
This is a popular meat and vegetable filled dumpling, they can be deep fried, pan fried, or boiled. Ours featured shrimp, spinach, water chestnuts, and some seasonings. Once you have all your ingredients, you place about a teaspoon on a wonton wrapper. Wet your finger and run it along the edges to help seal the dough. Fold in half diagonally and pinch the ends closed. Then cook them your preferred way (I like pan fried, not too greasy and you get a little bit of crisp on it.)
Ramen
This soupy noodle dish is a great option for a healthy, filling, and warm dinner. You can add whatever vegetables, tofu, or meats you want and mix it up each time. As we all like different things we prepared plates of chilis, red onions, cilantro, scallions, lime wedges, bean sprouts, and mushrooms to customize our dishes with. We also pan fried some chicken (which we based in teriyaki sauce.) To put it together you put your meats and noodles into the bowl first, then pour your broth (we used chili chicken) in. Afterward get creative and add your veggies to the top.
We also blended some watermelon pineapple juice as a nice fruity accompaniment to our spicy and savory noodles. It was a pleasant evening and helped calm my wanderlust a little (even if all of me couldn’t leave, my stomach and taste buds at least got to travel for a little while.)