What's Sr Gregor Eating Now? - Teriyaki chicken and gyoza

This dish is fairly simple to create from scratch. I see a lot of bottles of pre-made teriyaki sauce, but they always come across, in my opinion, far too thick and syrupy. I tend to like something a bit thinner in consistency, but don't want to loose some of the rich flavor.

My teriyaki sauce uses about four heaping tablespoons of brown sugar, a tablespoon of sambal oelek (a common Indonesian pepper sauce), maybe half a teaspoon of fish sauce, and about two-third of a cup of soy sauce. Start out by mixing all of the ingredients in a large plastic bag and letting your chicken breast rest in there whole.

While the breast marinates, now is a good time to knock out some noodle paper for your gyoza. The recipe I provided for ravioli works just fine: 1 egg per 100 grams of flour. Work until it comes out fairly thin, cut into 3 inch by 3 inch squares, and set aside on some wax paper under a moist towel. (In the interest of full disclosure, my first pass at this saw me stack all of the noodle squares on top of one another, and when it came time to fill them, they stuck to each other like glue. If counterspace is an issue, place a piece of wax paper slightly larger than the noodle with a dusting of flour between each noodle.)

Next, we want to make our gyoza filling. I started out with grating a golfball-sized knob of ginger, pressing three large cloves of garlic, adding one heaping tablespoon of brown sugar, and splashing about four or five tablespoons of olive oil, then mixing it all together. Drop in a hot pan over medium heat and let the sugar and oils start to break down. Once they had just began to bubble, I added in a quarter cup of diced shrimp and an equal part of ground pork, and cooked for about 3 minutes, until the pork showed no pink. The flavor hadn't quite come out, so I also seasoned it a bit more with a splash of sesame oil, salt, black pepper, and white pepper.

While the meat finished, I chopped some cabbage into thin strips (about a quarter cup) and splashed in some more sesame oil as well as toasted sesame seeds. Once the meat finished, I added it hot straight into the cabbage, allowing it to slightly wilt the cabbage without cooking it into mush, and set aside.

Now, I started a new hot pan, oiled and seasoned (the pan, not me) and preheated my oven to 200F. Once it was nice and hot, I threw on the chicken breast but not the sauce. My goal here was to get the outside of the chicken breast seared and the bit of sauce that clung to it to caramelize, creating a slightly denser outer coating that would seal the juices of the meat inside. Once both sides looked good, I dropped in the rest of the sauce from the bag and brought to a quick boil. Finally, I placed the whole pan into the oven to finish. Throughout the rest of the cooking, I would occasionally check on the pan, baste it a bit, and flip the breast once to ensure both sides were nicely coated.

Back to my gyoza: I cleaned up one of the pans and put down just less than a quarter inch of olive oil, turning the stovetop to medium high. Then, I took my noodle sheets and filled with about a large tablespoon of filling, folded the noodle and pressed the seam tightly. Once all of the noodles were so filled, I'd place them in the pan and cover with a lid. After a minute or so on one side, I'd flip them and recover. Covering the pan allows the parts of the noodle not in contact with the oil and pan to steam-cook until tender.

Next, take out your chicken from the oven and set aside to let it cool a bit, giving the sauce some time to thicken a tad. For a gyoza sauce, I went with just a dab of sambal oelek, some ponzu, and some green onion bits. I plated with some jasmine rice and steamed broccoli, cutting the chicken and spooning some of the leftover sauce from the pan on top.

Here's the details again, if you're wanting a shopping list:

Teriyaki chicken
1 large chicken breast

4 Tbsp of brown sugar
1 Tbsp of sambal oelek
1/2 tsp of fish sauce
2/3 cup of soy sauce

Gyoza
1 egg
100 grams of flour

1/4 cup of ground pork
1/4 cup of diced shrimp
1/4 cup of sliced cabbage
1 Tbsp of brown sugar
1 large clump of ginger
3 large cloves of garlic
5 Tbsp of olive oil
1 tsp of sesame oil
dash of toasted sesame seeds
salt, black pepper, white pepper to taste

Gyoza sauce
Ponzu (a citrusy soy sauce)
Sambal oelek
green onion