BAM!

~Today's cultural event was cooking gyoza, which are Japanese dumplings. The cooking event was sponsored by the Nagoka Civics Center. About forty people showed up for a cook-off that would make Emeril proud.

^ The first step in making gyoza was to mix the meat and greens together. Soy sauce and oil were added to the mixture, followed by the secret ingredient: a special Chinese spice that store-bought gyoza don't have.

^ The finished mixture. Doesn't look very appealing, does it? Fortunately, this was only the first step in the cooking process.

^ While some of us were stirring the mixture, others were making dough. When both groups were finished, everyone began rolling the dough to make skin for the dumplings. Although it looks easy, it was a lot harder than it looks. To make gyoza properly, you can't just roll the dough flat; you have to keep the middle thicker than the outer edges of the circle. It took me a few tries to get the technique down.

^ Next we put the stuffing in the middle of the dough circles...

^...and closed the circles, creating the dumplings! Closing the dough pockets was also easier said than done; there's a "traditional" way of folding gyoza that took some time to learn.

^ My first successful effort is there on the right. As you can see, my technique still needs a little work!

^ Making the gyoza was a lot of fun. Many of my friends were there, and I also met a lot of interesting people there. One of my students even showed up!

^ Once the gyoza were wrapped up, they had to be cooked. Everyone was quite hungry at this point, so we were all waiting around the pots watching our meal boil.

^ Finally, everything was ready. Aside from the dumplings, we were also given bean-fried rice and green tea. What a delicious lunch!

^ As you can see, we made a lot of dumplings. There were far to many to eat; I could only eat about half of my portion. Of course, there was always the option of taking home a "wan-chan no kaban" (a doggy bag--I translated that myself!).

^ Cooking gyoza with a group of friendly people was a great experience. The dumplings we made tasted far better than the ones that you can buy at supermarkets in Japan. Cooking a quality meal takes more time than I usually have, but it's well worth the effort.

~Oyasumi!