Gyoza

Tonight I made gyoza for dinner. Back in Japan we could get it fresh at any convenience store, or frozen at the grocery store or even at the 100 Yen store. Here, though, it's a little harder to find. We all love it, so I decided to give it my best shot making it myself. I found a recipe online that looked like what I had in mind, but it didn't have any ingredient measurements. Lovely. I gave it my best shot, however, and...success! It was a ton of work, but it was worth every minute. It tasted just as good as the best gyoza we had in Japan. Today was the first time I've cooked with meat at home since Brad's birthday in early February, and it was worth it!

Now that I've made it successfully, I'll try it again and get some accurate measurements. In the meantime, though, I'll at least describe the steps. First I made a simple dough of flour and water, kneaded it for about 5 minutes, then set it aside while I made the filling. The filling consisted of ground pork, cabbage and green onions cooked together, and seasoned with sake, sesame oil, soy sauce, mirin, ginger and garlic.

Next, I pulled off little pieces of the dough, and rolled them into circles.



Then I spooned a little filling into the center of each circle, folded it over and sealed it.





The edges are pleated 4 or 5 times. I'm not sure of the purpose behind this, or if it's just for aesthetics.



I heated a little oil in a skillet, and added the gyoza to lightly brown on one side.



Once they were lightly brown, I poured in about 1/2 cup water, then covered and steamed them until the water was gone.





Once they finished steaming, I plated them up and we ate them with a soy sauce and vinegar mixture for dipping. Fabulous! I almost forgot to take a picture before we finished eating all of them. Here's one of the last ones.