Gyoza 餃子(ぎょうざ)
FEBRUARY 9, 2011
It may look difficult to make Gyoza, but once you know how to cook them it’s actually pretty simple. You can be very creative and try different ingredients for filling based on your own preference. The recipe below is for a typical Japanese Gyoza. Japanese Gyoza is distinctly different from Chinese potstickers. Chinese potstickers tend to have a thicker skin and the filling is mostly meat. Japanese consider Gyoza more of a side dish to complement our rice whereas the Chinese sometime eat potstickers as the main course. Japanese Gyoza wrappers are thinner and smaller, so make sure you buy the right wrappers specifically for Japanese Gyoza. My kids don’t look what’s inside and eat Gyoza in two or three bites. So I “hide” lots of veggies in it and it works! If there are leftover Gyoza wrappers, try wrapping cheese. It is a great appetizer dish as well.
Ingredients:
- 1 lb ground pork
- 3-4 cabbage leaves, finely chopped
- 2 green onions, finely chopped
- 3 Shiitake mushrooms, finely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 Tbsp. minced ginger
- 1-2 pkg Gyoza wrappers
- 1 Tbsp. oil for each batch of frying Gyoza
- ¼ cup water for each batch of frying Gyoza
- 1 Tbsp sesame oil for each batch of frying Gyoza
- 2 Tbsp. sake
- 1 Tbsp. sesame oil
- 2 tsp. soy sauce
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 Tbsp. rice vinegar
- 1 Tbsp. soy sauce
- 1/8 tsp. La-Yu (Japanese chili oil) (optional)
Seasonings
Dipping Sauce
Instructions:
- In a large bowl, combine ground pork, minced vegetables, and Seasonings. Knead the mixture with hands until it gets sticky.
- Wrap the filling with Gyoza wrappers (See How To Wrap Gyoza). If you don’t fry Gyoza right away, sprinkle corn starch on a plate before you place Gyoza. That way it won’t stick to the plate.
- In a large non-stick frying pan, heat oil on medium high heat. When the pan is hot, place 5 Gyoza in a row (touching each other) and place another 5 Gyoza next to them.
- Or you can arrange them in a circular shape.
- When Gyoza is browned (see below), pour water and put the lid on. Turn the heat to high and steam Gyoza till most of water evaporates. Be careful not to overcook Gyoza because it will burn easily.
- When most of the water is evaporated, remove the lid to let any remaining water evaporate. Add sesame oil around the edge of the inner pan and cook uncovered until Gyoza gets nice and crisp on the bottom.
- Scoop the 5 Gyoza together and transfer to a plate. Or for the Gyoza lined up in circular shape, place a serving plate on top of the pan and quickly flip. Serve immediately with dipping sauce.
A typical Inarizushi is sushi rice inside Inari-Age (sweetened bean curd skin). It was how I used to make Inarizushi because that’s how both my mother and grandmother made them. Last year I discovered another way to make Inarizushi. Since I love Shiso as an ingredient, I included Shiso leaf and Nori (seasoned seaweed) around sushi rice before putting in the Inari-Age. It was surprisingly tasty! Since then, my Inarizushi always includes Shiso leaf and Nori. I hope you give it a try next time when you try cooking Inarizushi. Also, for this recipe I used convenient Sushi Seasoning. We usually make sushi rice from scratch, but keeping a bottle of Sushi Seasoning in the fridge can be very convenient when you just need a small amount of sushi rice.
Today I’m sharing red bean (Azuki) ice cream recipe at 
How was your weekend? I’m sure everyone is trying to squeeze in some fun activities with family and friends before school starts in 1-2 weeks. We went to Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk again for fun rides and playing at the beach with the kids. Thank you everyone for the kind comments and emails for the past few days. I have read them all happily and I’ll be responding shortly.
Japanese cooking uses thinly sliced beef and pork for many dishes. One of the most common way to utilize these thin slices of meat is to roll something with it. In my blog, I’ve shared several beef and pork roll recipes so far and they are:
I hope everyone had a great weekend. I took a week off to update my site. Um, where’s the update you might ask? It’s our new 
