These days you will see Gyoza products everywhere. At supermarkets, you can find both frozen and fresh Gyoza, vegetarian Gyoza, pork and prawn Gyoza, spicy Gyoza, and even Vegan Gyoza. You can also buy Gyoza skins at supermarkets now as well as Asian shops. I’m sure they are all good products but they can’t compare to Gyoza made at home. The skins you buy from the shops are good but if I have time I will make the skins myself as they taste so much better.
Here are some tips for you.
After chopping all the vegetables, add salt, leave 30 mins, then wash the vegetables. This will remove any excess moisture from vegetables and bring out the flavour.
After adding meat to the vegetables mix really well until you get an almost paste-like consistency then your Gyoza will be juicy.
When wrapping gyoza don’t put too much mix so when your gyoza pastry doesn’t open.
Dust your tray with starch so when you wrap the gyoza and put them on the tray the bottom will be covered with starch which will give a nice crunchy bottom when cooked.
When finish gyoza cooking, add oil so bottom and crunch.
For my Gyoza sauce I use lemon, soy sauce and chilli paste (doubanjiang) as I like the citrus and chilli flavour. You can use soy sauce, vinegar and chilli or miso, soy sauce, vinegar and chilli or you can make your own style.
For this video I’m panfrying the Gyoza but you can boil, deep fry, or steam gyoza so try different cooking style and find the one you like.
This recipe is using pork mince but you can use chicken mince, pork and prawn, chicken and prawn, or beans or tofu for vegans and vegetarians. Try different ingredients and find your favorite.
Gyoza came from China and in Japan we started eating them from about 100 years ago. After WW2 Japanese Gyoza started to develop their own character and different prefectures have their own gyoza style. Most popular is Ustunomiya Gyoza. Utusnomiya is Gyoza town, lots of vegetables and meats, that’s Ustunomiysa style.
Other places, Fukushima, Kobe, Hamamatu (Shizuoka) and Hakata etc, all are famous for different styles. As you tcan imagine people make different styles Gyoza at home. Some people use regular cabbage instead Chinese cabbage, some people don’t use garlic, so you can try your style!
How to make Japanese Style Pork Gyoza
Ingredients
- 230 g Chinese cabbage*
- 140 g Garlic chives*
- 80 g Spring onion*
- 1 tsp Salt (for*vegetables)
- 250 g Pork minces
- 1 tsp Ginger Tube
- 1 tsp Garlic Minced
- 1.5 tsp Soy sauce
- 1.5 tsp Sugar
- 1.5 tsp Sesame oil
- ¼ tsp Salt
- ⅛ tsp Pepper
- 30 each Gyoza pastry
- 1 tbsp Starch Corn or Potato
- 1.5 tbsp Rice oil
- 120 ml Water
- 1 tbsp Rice oil
Instructions
- Wash all vegetables.
- Chop Chinese cabbage and put it into a bowl.
- Chop garlic chives and put it into the bowl.
- Chop spring onion and put it into the bowl.
- Add 1 tsp of salt into the bowl, mix well, and leave for 30 mins.
- While waiting for the chopped vegetables to soak, make some sauce. Cut and squeeze lemons pouring the lemon juice into a bowl. Add 3 tbsp of soy sauce and 1 tsp of doubanjiang into the bowl then mix well.
- After 30mins, wash the chopped well vegetables until the salt taste is gone.
- Squeeze the chopped vegetables to remove any remaining moisture. (Gyoza doesn’t like moisture.)
- Put the chopped vegetables into a bowl.
- Add 250g of pork minced into the bowl.
- Add 1 tsp of ginger, 1 tsp of garlic, 1.5 tsp of soy sauce, 1.5tsp of sesame oil, 1.5 tsp of sugar, ¼ tsp of salt and 1/8 tsp of pepper. (If using fresh ginger and garlic, grate them. In my fridge I always have minced garlic and a tube of ginger; fresh ginger is very expensive here is Australia).
- Mix well.
- Dust a tray with starch and spread it evenly. (This is to stop the gyoza sticking to the pan and also help crisp the skin a little.)
- Place a small amount of the filling in the centre of a gyoza skin and fold the skin as shown in the pictures below. When done place the gyoza on the dusted tray
Cooking gyoza
- Add 1.5 tbsp of oil to a fry pan and turn heat to between mid and high.
- Before the pan get too hot add Gyoza to the fry pan.
- Cook the gyoza until gyoza’s bottom is nice brown colour.
- Add 120ml of water to the fry pan and add a lid on the fry pan.
- Reduce the heat to mid to low.
- Cook until the water in the fry pan is gone, then take off the lid and add 1 tbsp of rice oil again on the gyoza. (This will make it easy to remove the gyoza and make the bottom a little crunchy.)
- Using a tool (I use a long chopstick, but you can use anything comfortable for you) to free the gyoza from the pan or move the fry pan until your gyoza is moving.
- Once the gyoza are free, put a plate (use a plate bigger than the fry pan) on the fry pan, and flip the fry pan leaving the gyoza on the plate. (Be careful, the fry pan is hot.)
- Serve the sauce with your gyoza.
Video
