Ever since I had contact with Japanese cuisine (stories, videos, various articles), Gyoza was always a reoccurring dish, and it was unanimously considered absolutely amazing. Obviously, I really wanted to create my own, and experience this dish in my own home. Now that I did, all I can say is that they are so good and you are really missing out if you don’t make a bigger batch to have some to freeze for another day.
They are not very complicated to make, but there are a few aspects that you need to keep in mind which I will mention lower in the method. Also, I would highly advise that you get a helper, as they are quite time consuming when it comes to folding. We made really good team work with this: P rolled the dough really thin, I folded the dumplings. This has cut the time in half and made it so much easier.
Ingredients:
Dough:
- 400g flour
- 230g hot water
- 7g salt
Filling:
- 450g ground pork meat
- ~ 1/4 of a napa cabbage ( I used a little less)
- 3 green onions
- a piece of 2cm of ginger
- 15 ml soy sauce
- 1 tsp salt
Method:
1. How to make the dough
- Put the flour and salt in a bowl. Pour the hot water (not boiling) in and start mixing with a spoon/spatula until you have a chunky sand-like texture.
- Get the mixture on the table and start kneading to bring it together. This will take a few minutes of kneading. If it is too dry, add another tablespoon of water. After about 5-7 mins you should have a smooth dough. Not elastic, just smooth.
- Wrap the dough in some plastic wrap and let it rest at least half an hour. You can let it rest for an hour too.
2. Filling
- While the dough rests, it is time to make the filling.
- I chopped the cabbage and added a generous pinch of salt on it. I gently rubbed the cabbage with the salt and let it sit for 10 mins. This will get some water out of the cabbage.
- Gently squeeze the water out of the cabbage and added it in a bowl with the meat.
- I grated the ginger, chopped the green onions really fine and added them in the bowl with the meat, soy sauce and salt.
- Now, one thing that I learned from Adam Liaw is that you have to stir the meat in the same direction. He has a really nice explanation about proteins in his video, so would highly recommend to watch. I did the same, but by hand. You can make the dough and filling in a stand mixer if you have one.
- To mix the filling by hand, I tried to keep a movement of folding in the same direction for about 3-5 minutes. You will feel that the filling will start getting together.
- I did not add an egg, it was not necessary, but if you add more veggies than I did, you may have to consider adding an egg in the mixture as well.
- After this I let the filling rest for about 20-30 mins. (I made a chili oil in that time)
3. Folding:
- This is the step that scared me the most, but I got the hang of it in the end.
- Now, my skills at rolling a perfect circle of dough are just not there. I am a disaster, they never turn out round, they are some iregular shape, haha. So, to make our life easier, the system we found is the following:
- cut the dough in quarters
- work with one quarter at a time, the rest of the dough stays covered in plastic wrap
- shape it like a thin log and cut it in pieces that will then become your wrappers.
- out of this dough and filling I made 25 gyoza, but mine were on the bigger side, if you want them at a normal smaller size, you will probably get 50 out of these. This may help you visualize how to cut the dough to get the amount of dumplings that you want.
- What we did was to roll one small piece of dough as thin as possible , 1-2 mm in thickness and perfect the shape with a bowl/jar/cookie cutter, anything works. You can also just roll the big piece of dough and cut the circles afterwards. I feel like doing it one by one and folding immediately just prevents the dough from drying out too fast, but to be honest you can use a bit of water on the edges and it is fine.
- Once you have the dough circle, place some filling in the center. Then you will fold it like a taco and secure the top middle. You can then just secure the edges and have a simple dumpling, or you can create those cute little ruffles. I would advise watching a few videos to see the technique. I will try to film one too next time I make them.
- Place the dumplings in a tray, on a baking sheet. Make sure to cover them to avoid drying.
4. Cooking:
- When it comes to cooking, there are multiple ways: you can boil them, steam them in a bamboo steamer or you can crisp the bottoms and also steam them in a pan, which is the method that I chose.
- To cook them you will need a wide pan. I uses stainless steel, you can go for cast iron or something else as well.
- Add 2-3 tbsp oil in the hot pan. Once the oil is nice and hot, place the dumplings making sure that they don’t touch each other. Let them cook for 2-3 mins, until crispy brown on the bottom and then add some water. I had 7 gyoza in the pan and I added 100ml of water.
- Please be careful and be prepared with a lid as it will start popping really bad. Cover immediately with the lid and let them steam for 5-7 mins at medium heat. It will stop popping that bad at one point, and that is when you can check to see how they look like.
- If they still look uncooked, add a tiny bit of water, half from what you added the first time and cover again and let them steam. If you make them smaller you may not need this step.
- Carefully pop them out when done and drizzle chili oil on top.
I was so impressed with how these turned out that I had to share the recipe. They were tender, the seasoning was spot on and the chili oil just completed the flavour palette.
They are not as intimidating once you fold a few, so definitely try them out. You will love them. I also want to create a vegetarian version, so let me know if you would be interested in that. I will also film the folding process next time, so make sure to follow me there too.
Better Than Salads 