gobbling gyoza

Fed up of having to buy expensive frozen dumplings from the few Asian supermarkets that stock them, Yuki and I decided to make our own. To save time, we bought a few packets of ready-made gyoza wrappers from Centrepoint Supermarket (24 wrappers in a pack, at £1.99 each), fresh chives (£1.99), and a pack of minced pork (£1.18). Soy sauce, sesame oil, salt and white pepper were already available at home, so our raw ingredients came to a total of £7.15, a little amount for the mountain of gyoza we ended up with!

The filling is super easy to prepare, as you’ll simply need to mix in a generous amount of soy sauce, about two tablespoons of sesame oil (for an average 400g pack of minced pork), a pinch of salt, and a generous sprinkling of white pepper. Usually we’d add chopped cabbage as well, but we kept it simple and only added chopped Chinese chives. Crack in an egg to bind, and mix well (don’t be afraid to use your hands!).

Making the gyoza couldn’t be easier, either (especially if you’re not too fussed about making pretty pleats, as we weren’t) – take a piece of wrapper and place a heaped teaspoon of the pork mixture in the centre. Wet half of the wrapper’s edge, and fold in half to bring together. Press together to seal, then pinch in the edges to create ‘zig zag’ folds. Alternatively, you can get a handy gyoza press (from Japan Centre). Place on a flour-dusted plate while you make the rest!

We cooked them two ways (Yuki likes them boiled in soup, I like them pan-fried; but then sometimes it’s hard to decide between the two methods), and both were delicious. The gyoza wrappers we got were great, and held up well during cooking and had a nice, chewy bite to them, as it should! The ’soup’ was simple – just soy sauce, white pepper and a bit of sesame oil with the water used to boil the dumplings. We cooked some choi sum (Chinese flowering cabbage) to go with it, too (using the same liquid for the soup as to not lose out on the vitamins!).

Pan-frying worked really well, too, though they didn’t look very pretty due to the flour burning slightly in the pan and ’staining’ most of the dumplings during the steaming process. I’d recommend tapping off all the flour you can (though Yuki was a bit overzealous with the flouring in the first place… :P). The process is easy – heat a bit of oil in the pan, and add the dumplings when hot (it helps to flatten the bottoms a bit, so they don’t topple over). Fry until the bottoms are golden-brown, then pour water into the pan to come up halfway over the dumplings. Cover with a lid and allow to steam until most of the water has evaporated. Take off the lid and let the rest of the liquid evaporate. Serve with a soy sauce and vinegar dipping sauce.

All in all, a great dinner was had… though I think I’ll have to wait a while before I eat another dumpling!