Reviews: Nasoya Dumplings and The First Mess
If you’re new to my blogging style (and why wouldn’t you be, as this is a new blog, but pssst I used to have another one), you should know that I cook a lot from cookbooks. Cookbooks are my inspiration, and I love to read them. I read them in bed at night like you might read a novel, and marvel at the ingredients lists when something particularly clever is combined, saying to myself ‘oh, I see - interesting - must try that out!’. Even if I rarely cook from a given cookbook (as I am drawn to complicated tomes, but prefer to cook straightforward recipes, go figure), I like to read it now and then and get inspiration from recipes because you can just straight up learn a lot from reading about how others cook. You learn techniques, flavor and texture combining, and it’s a little like looking into someone else’s head to read about how they navigate from raw ingredients to final dish. Sometimes I find myself scoffing (‘why on earth would you do this before that?’), but usually I’ll try out these different-to-me ways of being as if trying on a hat that I figure I’ll probably never wear, but could come in handy in the right situation.
Anyhow…that’s why I love cookbooks. The learning, mostly. (I also like the pictures, cookbooks these days are just plain beautiful.)
Ok, something else to know about me is that I rarely buy pre-made products. Sure, I buy vegan cheese and butter and mayo (why reinvent the wheel when they’re doing so well out there for me?) and use them sparingly when the time calls for them, I rarely buy meat substitutes (though I do on occasion), but I don’t almost never buy frozen meals. Why would I? I like to cook. Not having time in the evenings has rarely stood in my way, since I plan and prep when I do have spare time (although I did have a desperate Uber Eats moment recently that re-cemented the fact that I need to remember to plan for nights after I teach). Generally, I find pre-made food to be pretty bland, boring, the servings sizes are too small, and they’re kind of expensive, no?
All that to say that I saw these Nasoya dumplings on sale at Target and got them on a whim. There would still be cooking involved as they needed to either be pan-fried or steamed, and I’d need to make a dipping sauce. So cooking-lite, but still cooking. Also they were like $5. Which maybe sounds expensive-ish, but I ate them all as one meal instead of divvying them up into three appetizer-sized portions like the nutrition label suggested. $5 isn’t bad for a meal these days, considering Uber Eats robs me of around $20 any time I dare order in (I’m really salty about that experience I had recently, obviously). Plus, dumplings themselves are fiddly to make, and I usually steer clear of fiddly, unless I have a friend over to do a fun little kitchen project with me, and since we’re in the middle of a pandemic….well. Oh, I also want to go ahead now and say that this isn’t an advertisement or partnership (if it was, it would be a pretty poor one).
As you can see, I chose to pan-fry them! I really enjoy the chewiness of a pan-fried dumpling, although steamed dumplings do have their place in my heart. The instructions on the package were easy to follow, and they were ready in under 10 minutes. Success. Now, the filling itself (tofu and peas, it seems? there are other things, but mostly I got tofu and peas) is a little bland, but nothing a good dipping sauce can’t fix!
Dipping sauces like this are pretty easy to whip up without a recipe, if you’ve eaten something like it out before (if not, then definitely a recipe is the way to go!). They’re mostly soy sauce, honestly, with ginger and green onions and sometimes a little sesame oil. But, earlier that day I had been thumbing through The First Mess cookbook and happened to see that Laura has a recipe for (dumplings and) a dipping sauce. Serendipity! I will most likely try her dumpling (she calls them potstickers, which is a way of saying fried dumpling) recipe someday, but since I had these on hand and needed only the sauce - that’s what I made. It was a well-balanced concoction of the usual suspects (tamari, ginger, green onion, etc) but the addition of maple syrup is what made me really want to give this one a go. Maple syrup! Really, brilliant. The added sweetness was of course a treat, but maple itself is rather malty, and made for a more complex sauce than the usual. And I do appreciate a trip away from the usual. I did add a little bit of chili flakes to give it some heat, but I don’t believe that took away from the original recipe in any way - and sweet heat is rarely a miss.
And thus a quick little meal-for-one was made! If you’re looking to gain anything from this jumble of words (aside from, I hope, entertainment) here you go:
Pre-made dumplings are ok.
Laura from The First Mess is very good at adding subtle differences to her recipes that make me go ‘aha!’ on a regular basis.
A kitchen tip: when you’re making a meal that calls for a sauce, always make the sauce first so that the flavors have time to meld.
That’s all for today!