Happy Canada Day! I hope you did something, because I didn't.

Jul 1, 2009 at 9:42 PM

☆ Work was long and painful. I didn't get enough sleep last night, as I predicted. I was almost nodding off in Kaneko's class. Fuck, what is the point me even being there? I want to ask him.

☆ My aircon has been acting up lately. It'll run but I can't change any settings with the remote. The Toshiba man came and fixed it. It was the sensor, just like I thought. So he replaced the part and I don't have to pay anything. :)

☆ Somehow, I managed to not burn 4 episodes of Grey's Anatomy S2. Right in the middle. WTF? I didn't even realize it until just now.

☆ So the fucking city hall never ended up calling InterGlobal, of course. I crunched some numbers and in the end just decided to not fight it anymore. If you divide the total in 12 (as opposed to the 10 payments it is), I'm really only paying 9,800 a month. But still dropping 800$ on my bills this month really, really hurts.

☆ I made gyoza!

I have so many recipes, I've just been lazy to post them. I think I've got 5 or 6 things to post. :X Today, I though I'd be all hardcore and make my own gyoza. They actually came our really well! And hell of a lot cheaper than buying them at the store. Aside from sauces and seasonings and stuff which I always have in the house (garlic and ginger), the ingredients were under 1,000 yen and I made 30 dumplings with enough filling for about 2 more left over. Took a little while to get a hang of the pleating but I'm pretty pro now!

Ingredients

Filling:
320g ground pork
8-10 shrimp, pre-cooked
2 dried shiitake mushrooms
1 clove garlic
1 chunk ginger, about the same size as garlic
Pinch each of salt and pepper
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp sake
4 tbsp vegetable oil

1 package gyoza wrappers

Sauce:
4 tbsp soy sauce
4 tbsp vinegar
Rayu (chili oil) to taste

Rehydrate the mushrooms. Blanch the cabbage and scallions.
Mince the cabbage, scallions, mushrooms and shrimp. Peel and mince and ginger and garlic.
Put the meat and shrimp in a bowl and kneed with your hands. Season with salt, pepper, soy sauce, sesame oil and sake. Mix well until smooth.
Squeeze excess moisture out of the vegetables and add them to the bowl. Mix well.
Spoon about 1 tsp of filling onto a wrapper. Wet the edge of water with you ring finger. Fold in half and pleat the edge. Arrange on a plate to rest while you prepare some hot water and heat a non-stick pan over high heat.
Add oil to the frying pan. Line the gyoza up on the pan and fry the bottom until desired golden brown colour.
Pour about 1/4" hot water into the pan and quickly cover with a lid to trap the steam. Steam until the wrappers are transparent and the filling is cooked (about 2 minutes).
Arrange on a plate and serve with dipping sauce.