Gyoza Recipe

I made some gyoza tonight, so I thought I'd post the recipe. They're a little labour intensive, but it's a lazy sort of work. BF was settling in to watch some TV, so I whipped up the filling in a couple of minutes and sat with him on the couch assembling the dumplings. It's kind of relaxing actually and then you don't have to feel so lazy because you've been sitting around :P

These are my absolute favorite bento filler. It's not unusual for me to put them in a bento for lunch and then go to dinner at a Japanese restaurant and order them there as well. I could probably live off of them if I had to.

No pictures this time because the method is the same as my recipe for leek dumplings, it's just a different filling.

One quick note about the recipe: Most recipes for gyoza are made with raw ground pork which cooks during the final steaming/frying. I prefer to cook mine first because when I see all the fat that drains out of it while cooking, I definitely am glad that wasn't inside the gyoza. It does give a different texture to the gyoza though, but I think it tastes equally delicious both ways. If you prefer using the pork raw, just add the mirin and soy sauce to the dumpling filling directly.

Recipe: Gyoza

Ingredients

1/2 lb ground pork
2 1/2 cups chopped chinese or napa cabbage
3 Tbsp chopped green onion
1 inch chunk of ginger, grated
1 clove of garlic
1 egg white
1 1/2 Tbsp mirin
1 1/2 Tbsp soy sauce
Package of 50 round dumpling wrappers

For the dipping sauce, mix rice vinegar and soy sauce half and half. Serve about 1 Tbsp of sauce for 6 dumplings.

Heat frying pan to medium heat with mirin and soy sauce. Fry and separate the ground pork into small pieces. Remove from heat and drain well /pat with paper towel.

Combine pork with all of the other ingredients (except wrappers of course) and mix well.

The filling will be a little moist from the liquid that leaves the cabbage, so use a fork instead of a spoon to scoop out the filling to reduce the amount of liquid in the gyoza.

Scoop 1 Tbsp of filling onto each wrapper. Wet the edge of the wrapper and fold in the same way as for leek dumplings. Place on wax paper so that they are not touching, and freeze. If you don't use wax paper, they'll be tough to remove from the plate or tray that you freeze them on. Once frozen you can put them in a plastic bag or tupperware to save space.

When you are ready to eat them, steam until cooked or fry in a bit of canola oil until brown (even yummier is to steam them and then fry them on one side). You don't have to thaw them first.

Enjoy!!