Lena Headey's miso mushroom dumplings recipe
Beder UK, the mental health charity, gathered this delicious dumpling recipe from Game of Thrones actress Lena Headey for its new Eat With Beder cookbook, which helps raise awareness around mental wellbeing and suicide prevention.
Lena says: “Mental health is a lifelong journey, ever evolving, so the conversation about it should be never ending. Give up that cruel self-talk, it’s toxic and doesn’t serve anyone. Instead, do good stuff for others and make affirmations of kindness to yourself. I know that not moving my body and eating food that I haven’t cooked affects my head and makes me sad. Bad habits like this are formed through fear, getting stuck. Breaking them is hard… but freedom awaits. Don’t wait. You’re SO worth a few broken windows: let the light in.”
Ingredients
- 500 g chestnut mushrooms (or a mix of varieties)
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 leeks, finely sliced
- 3 cloves of garlic, diced
- 2 tsp brown rice miso paste
- 15 dumpling wrappers
- 1 drizzle of olive oil
- 1 drizzle of toasted sesame oil
- 1 pinch of sesame seeds
Details
- Cuisine: Japanese-inspired
- Recipe Type: Dumplings
- Difficulty: Easy
- Preparation Time: 30 mins
- Cooking Time: 35 mins
- Serves: 4
Step-by-step
- Cut all the mushrooms into small pieces, about the same size as a pea.
- Place a large pan over a medium heat and add a drizzle of olive oil.
- Once warm, add the onion, leeks, garlic and a pinch of salt to the pan. Mix well and cook for 5-10 minutes, or until the onions and leeks turn soft.
- Stir in the chopped mushrooms, mixing really well, and cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring every now and then to ensure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pan. Once the mushrooms have softened, mix through the miso paste and cook for another 5 minutes until everything is cooked through. Remove from the heat and set aside.
- Once the mixture is cool, assemble the dumplings. There are two ways to do this:
Technique 1: Spoon 1 tablespoon of the mushroom filling into the centre of each dumpling wrapper. Hold the dumpling in one hand and close your hand to fold the dumpling together. Once the dumpling is in a V shape, pinch the sides together to seal. You can make little folds like traditional dumplings, or keep it simple by just sealing the outsides. You should be left with a little half-moon dumpling as shown in the photo.
Technique 2: For a slightly simpler way, spoon 1 tablespoon of the mushroom filling into the centre of each dumpling wrapper, then bring all the edges of the wrapper together in the middle, enclosing the filling. Pinch the top together and twist to seal. You should be left with a little round dumpling. - Repeat whichever process you prefer until you have assembled all the dumplings, then place them in the fridge until needed. To cook the dumplings, heat a drizzle of toasted sesame oil in a pan over a medium heat. Once hot, add the dumplings to the pan and cook on each side for 2-4 minutes until golden and cooked through, adding a dash of water when you flip them. Serve the dumplings immediately with a sprinkle of sesame seeds on top.
Recipe extracted from Eat With Beder by Razzak Mirjan (Meze Publishing, £24.99). Photography by Kimberley Espinel.
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