I switched up what to make and started with gyoza and tofu patties. Let me preface with this- I don't make these very often from scratch so it wasn't a picture perfect turnout... neither Jeremy nor I were huge fans of either dish but we didn't dislike it either.
Dish 1. Gyoza- The inside consisted of ground turkey, chives, green onions, shiitake mushrooms, cabbage, ginger, and sessonings It was quite green since I put in a lot of greens in comparison to meat, to which Jeremy asked "Are the insides supposed to be that green? Our Costco ones aren't that green are they?" Definitely not. I will agree that I overdid the greens a little bit because the taste was a bit "green-ier" than even I would have liked... definitely less chives next time. However, that wasn't the only thing that went wrong. At least I took a before picture when they looked pretty.
When I assembled and lined them up on the cookie sheet, and the pan, they were absolutely gorgeous, but come time to cook them in the pan, they stuck to each other AND the pan. I'm not sure if the skin is thinner than what my parents and restaurants use, but after the water disappeared from the pan, most of the pot stickers were stuck to the bottom. Apparently I will need to use a lot more oil at the beginning than I actually did this time. As you can imagine, when I flipped them out of the pan, instead of beautifully browned gyozas, they were pot STICKERS with green insides exposed and homeless. I had to do a careful reassembly project to make them presentable!
Dish 2. Tofu Patties- Japanese people call it "tofu-burg" like a burger, but I see it more as a patty (I guess they're the same thing). I included tofu, egg, chives, shiitake mushrooms, carrots, and green onions. My first mistake was putting too many veggies in there for the amount of tofu and egg to bind it together, which means it wasn't going to hold together. I was obviously willing to hope and take the risk though!Now for the things that went wrong. First off, it fell apart so it didn't turn golden brown like I would have liked on both sides. I might as well have scrambed it all together. Two, I tried to steam it for a while while I was housing the homeless gyoza innards and well the bottoms burned. At least I was able to scoop up the tops without the burn-y flavor and they somewhat stayed together in patty-ish pieces. The flavor itself wasn't bad at all even though it did lean a little bit on the bland side in my opinion. The book mentioned eating it with grated daikon so maybe that would have made a difference, but I should have flavored it a little more from the beginning. Overall though, not bad but not something Jeremy nor I will crave.
To add to the disastrous morning, I was cooking rice and chose the "brown rice" setting as I normally do, instead of the white rice setting I meant to do this time. So it took FOREVER to cook...For anybody that saw the movie Julie & Julia, this was definitely a Julie going crazy in the kitchen moment for me. I've never been a failure in the kitchen but I sure felt like one today! I thought to myself "On the first day? REALLY? Maybe this is why I don't venture out of my normal favorite dishes!" BUT, I will press on because it can only get better from here! Heck, these are learning experiences so I may make these again with these improvements I've noted!
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