Oh my Gyoza!

My mom and dad are both excellent cooks. That must be where I've gotten all my awesome cooking talent. One of the more amazing dishes they have made is Gyoza. Gyoza are Japanese Potstickers and they are wonderfully delicious. I had a really strong craving for them recently so I called my parents to beg for the recipe. My parents just moved from St. Louis to California and are in between houses, so most of their stuff is still in St. Louis. Apparently the beloved family cookbook with the Gyoza recipe did not make the cut of necessary items to bring with them. My dad did, however, give me some general tips on making them. He also sent me a link of one of the recipes he used and tweaked to get their recipe.

So, here is my first try at making Gyoza.

Soooooo Yummy!

I think it turned out very well. It's actually easier than I thought it was to make. The filling mixes up really quickly and frying them only takes a few minutes. The most time consuming part is putting the filling in the wrapper and sealing it, but it's not hard. You can fold the edges to make it look pretty, or just leave it as a semi-circle. It will taste the same either way.

I'll share the recipe with you. Now remember, this is not "THE" gyoza recipe, but a close, very tasty approximation. So, until the real recipe is retrieved and posted on my dad's blog, here is the reigning Gyoza recipe.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup chopped cabbage, boiled (about 1 cup raw)

2 Tbsp chopped green onion

1/2 pound ground pork, raw

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tsp sugar

2 tsp soy sauce

1/2 tsp garlic salt

1 tsp grated fresh ginger

20-26 gyoza wrappers (depending on how much filling you have)

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

Dipping sauce: equal amounts of soy sauce and rice vinegar, with chili oil to taste

Combine all ingredients other than wrappers and vegetable oil in a bowl. Mix well with hands. Place a teaspoonful of filling in a gyoza wrapper and put water along the edge of the wrapper using a finger. (It helps to keep a small bowl or dish of water close by while assembling.) Make a semi circle, gathering the front side of the wrapper and sealing the top. Heat the oil in a frying pan. Put gyoza in the pan and fry on high heat for a few minutes until the bottoms become brown. Turn the gyoza and brown on the other side. (Some recipes say to just fry on one side. This is up to you. I like the crispiness of frying both sides.) Turn the heat down to low. Add 1/4 cup water in the pan. Be careful when adding the water as it will make the oil splatter. Cover the pan and steam the gyoza on low heat until the water is gone. Serve the gyoza with dipping sauce.

This recipe link has some great pictures to show the method of making the gyoza if you're interested, but the recipe itself doesn't sound quite right.

And here's the link to the recipe I used if you want to look at that in addition to my well written directions.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that you can make extra gyoza and freeze before cooking. Once you're already in the groove of forming the dumplings it's pretty easy to make extra to freeze for another meal.

And finally, here are pictures of the gyoza my dad made. His look crispier than mine. Notice how I served my gyoza with rice and green beans too. It sounded like a winning combination. Really, all the recipes and information on this blog are from my dad. I'm passing it off like it's mine, but my dad is the one who researched links, emailed them to me, and gave me all the tips on how to make them that I've now passed to you. So thank you, Dad. Thanks for all your help. The gyoza were delicious!