Japanese Gyoza

[ZethLent]

I made up a batch of Gyoza last week and thought I would post my recipe (ad hoc as it may be) for anyone to give a try.


Gyoza are a fried, steamed or boiled dumpling.





Key ingredients for Gyoza: Cabbage (regular or chinese), Ground Beef or Pork, Ginger root, green onion or chives, Salt, Sesame oil, and the Gyoza outer wrap.


The most important thing for making Gyoza is to wring out the cabbage. How you do this is chop the cabbage until it is less than an inch or so in size and put it in a collander. Sprinkle several tablespoons full of salt onto it and start mashing the cabbage and salt together. The salt on the cabbage softens it and you can start wringing the water out of the cabbage. Add more salt as you go and as is needed. As you work the cabbage and squeeze out the water you will end up with limp soggy cabbage. Try to squeeze out as much water as you can. Add the wrung out cabbage to a large bowl.


Note: the amount of cabbage is up to you. If you like a more meaty filling then that is fine. I usually go about half and half meat to cabbage ratio.


Next you want to peel the ginger root and start processing that. Here in Japan we use an 'oroshi ki' to do this. But I guess if you have a food processor that will work too. You want a very fine paste-like consistency for the ginger. I use about two to three tablespoons worth of ginger (this includes the 'water'' that comes off of the ringer. I don't throw it out, but I add it to the filling mix.


Add the rest of the ingredients. Ground meat. Green onion. Sesame oil. And whatever else you think might add to the flavour. I have added garlic and chili oil ('ra-yu').


Mix everything well and leave overnight in the fridge.


Now to make up the dumplings. You will need to visit a local Japanese or Chinese food store and pick up some round dumpling wraps. Size and thickness of the wraps will vary but small 3 inch diameter ones are what's normal. I like the slightly larger ones that are a little thicker only because I like larger gyoza.


Now for the hard part.


Holding one wrap on and upright hand spoon on a little bit of the filling onto the middle of the wrap.

Like so:




Next wet a fingertip in a cup of water and moisten about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of the edge all the way around the wrap. Now you want to fold the entire wrap in half and start 'pleating' the upper edge of the wrap and pinching each pleat to the botton half of the wrap.


It should look something like this (the number of pleats will vary from person to person):




Make sure the edge is pinched closed.

At this point you can do one of several things. You can freeze them. You can start frying them in oil. You can put them into a steamer and steam them. Toss them into boiling water. It's your call.


If you are going to fry them this is how it's done. A good layer of oil over a medium hot frying pan. Fry until one side starts to brown. Then add a 1/3 of a cup of water and put the lid on until the water has all steamed off. Uncover and lower the heat a little. The gyoza will be soggy. You want to give them a little time to dry out. Flip them if you want (I usually do). You want to try to get a little bit of crisp on at least one side of the gyoza.


Once done serve with a bowl of rice and some gyoza dipping sauce. (This is a mixture of vinegar and soy sauce. Again like the filler this is a personal thing. I like mine more sour than salty so I add more vinegar. Others will like it more salty. I use sushi vinegar but white vinegar will work too.)

End result = mmmmmmmm gyoza

[Kees]

Looks delicious! Are these Japanese fortune cookies?

[Stubear]

Those look amazing! I'm going to have to try them out now, I love cooking..!

Thanks very much for the recipe!

[ZethLent]

Looks delicious! Are these Japanese fortune cookies?

Not fortune cookies but a fried meat and cabbage dumpling.

[ZethLent]

Something I forgot to add, you can add the chili oil to the gyoza sauce for a spicy kick.

I also forgot to say that the batch I made up was about 70 gyoza. I froze fifty of them for future use.

You can use any extra gyoza wraps at the end and fry them up in oil for a crispy chip treat.

[Doc]

2 things do you rinse the excess salt off the cabbage and when you finish getting the water out of the cabbage is it like a mashed paste or would that be taking it to far?

[ZethLent]

2 things do you rinse the excess salt off the cabbage and when you finish getting the water out of the cabbage is it like a mashed paste or would that be taking it to far?

No need to rinse (you can if you are concerned about sodium in your diet though). Most of the salt will go down the drain anyway. The cabbage will feel kind of rubbery but not paste like, that would be taking it too far. I typically spend about 3~5 minutes on the cabbage. Sometimes it is too much to do in one batch so I split it up.

[MichaelP]

Something I forgot to add, you can add the chili oil to the gyoza sauce for a spicy kick.

Layu for the win

We recently found out a nice/cheap source of gyoza: pelmeni from russian supermarkets. Korean gyoza are quite nice too, especially kimchi gyoza.

[Pete_S]

Thats some really nice work on those pleats. When I make those they dont look nearly as nice. The Gyozo I make are a mix of recipes from americas test kitchen and Alton browns show--pretty much the same (except I've always just called them pot stickers). A guy over at B&B had a recipe for these he posted and he added Tofu to the filling. I haven't tried it yet, but that sounds like a good idea.

One thing I do differently is I've always just let the cabbage sit in that salt for 1/2 to 1 hour and drain before wringing it.

[avatar1999]

mmmmm...Gyoza...

I usually end up buying mine at an asian grocery store in Baltimore, and I don't deep fry mine, I steam em

Being part Polish, I make my own Pierogi the way my Great-Grandmother used to make em

Gonna be making up a batch this weekend probably, and I can't wait