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Japanese Gyoza

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.

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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 lake 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:

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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):

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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 :yesnod:

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Excellent explanation! That should make everybody want to make some gyoza tonight.

Once you've mastered the filling, you can experiment with other varieties. I have a friend who uses tuna salad as a filling. Sounds odd, tastes great. Another friend of mine will pick up several different kinds of cheese and fill fried gyoza with them. You can add chopped shrimp too. Yet another one of my friends adds green tea leaves once they've been steeped to his filling, but I haven't tried that myself.

You can also vary the dipping sauce. Instead of vinegar, I like to add hot oil (chili infused) to the soy sauce.
 
awesome, man! I miss gyoza. my mom used to make it all the time when I lived in Japan, so of course, I only get to eat it when I visit her.
 
I should mention that I like mine with a lot of ginger. You may not prefer that much but I think that it makes them what they are.

The batch I mentioned making in the OP was about 70 gyoza. I fried up 20 and froze 50. I think I might fry up some for dinner tonight... :w00t:
 
Awesome! My wife usually makes them (or we head out somewhere to eat gyoza) so sadly I don't even know how to do it myself. Your post has inspired me however to watch next time she makes up a batch! :biggrin:
 
Do you think minced ginger which is available here in the supermarkets would be an acceptable substitute for doing it yourself? And would love to see a demonstration of how you pleated those so nicely!!! When I make dim sum, I never have been able to make a decent pleat!
 
Yum.

I'm also a huge fan of Shumai. Do you make those?

Yes, shiu mai are easy. Usually mostly follow the recipe in the Frugal Gourmet's Three Ancient Cuisines. Use round gyozu wrappers from the Asian market. I personally don't put in shrimp, just use extra ground pork because my daughter-in-law doesn't care for shrimp. My grocer grinds pork sirloin for me. My pleating isn't great, but they taste good. Use a bamboo steamer over a wok.
 
Do you think minced ginger which is available here in the supermarkets would be an acceptable substitute for doing it yourself? And would love to see a demonstration of how you pleated those so nicely!!! When I make dim sum, I never have been able to make a decent pleat!

You could--and I occasionally see prepared ginger in a tube in the herb section of the grocery store. In a pinch, you can even use powdered ginger, but I would be tempted to just go without. Unfortunately, nothing has the same zing as fresh ginger does. I go through quite a bit of it and I think that it requires about the same degree of prep as garlic. The only down side of using fresh is that I usually find a stray piece about the size of a joint from my thumb down at the bottom of the veggie tray when I'm cleaning up. A little bit always seems to go to waste.
 
Those gyoza look great :biggrin: I love them

Similar to gyoza is pirogue a Polish Middle European stuffed noodle often with meat fillings or potato and sauerkraut or potato and cheese fillings made similar to the gyoza fried with butter and minced onion and served with mustard and sour cream anyone wanting a recipe PM me
 
Those gyoza look great :biggrin: I love them

Similar to gyoza is pirogue a Polish Middle European stuffed noodle often with meat fillings or potato and sauerkraut or potato and cheese fillings made similar to the gyoza fried with butter and minced onion and served with mustard and sour cream anyone wanting a recipe PM me

Love the pirogue I tried back here a few months back. Not freshly made, but still loved it. Came from Costco. Was at one of my sister's house and just happened to have some finish before leaving. Good stuff. Starting to like gyoza better now. Least I can eat some now! My taste has been changing quite a bit the past few months on me. :w00t:
 
Love Japanese Gyoza. We lived in Japan when I was a kid and there was a Gyoza shop nearby that I can still taste. It was in Sagamihara, not too far from Tokyo. Very simple, always crowded, but great gyoza. Never have found a place that I like as much. Wonder if it's still open..
 

Luc

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I was looking for dim sums and found this. It looked too fantastic to leave it at the bottom of the forum. I will try to make something that looks like that this week-end! Mine will be steamed.
 
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