Homemade Gyoza

I was feeling rather adventurous tonight so I decided to make gyoza for dinner, from scratch. The actual gyoza filling is quite simple- ground pork, ginger, garlic, scallions, napa cabbage, chives, soy sauce, sake, sesame oil and pepper. You just chop everything into small crunchy pieces and mix it with the pork. Let it marinate for about and hour...then the tough part. Assembling the gyoza.

I referred to a YouTube video entitled Cooking With Dog in which a cute Japanese woman makes gyoza with her poodle sitting obediently on the counter while her son narrates the steps in English. Her fingers move
so quickly to fold the gyoza, I had to rewatch it at least 10 times. My dumplings ended up looking more like perogis...which is fine, but not exactly what I was going for. By my 20th try, I was starting to get a handle on things, but alas, I ran out of filling.

Cooking the gyoza is pretty fast but is more involved than you would think. You first brown the bottoms on medium heat in an oiled pan. Then, you add boiling water so that it comes up to about halfway of the dumplings. Cover immediately and let steam-fry until the water has disappeared. Last step: add some sesame oil to the pan and fry the bottoms once more, but don't burn 'em!

I like to dip my gyoza in a mixture of soy sauce and rice wine vinegar. If I'm feeling sassy, which I normally am, I add some chili oil or Sriracha.

My first try was pretty successful and I can't wait to give it another try and experiment with different fillings.

Don't they look yummy?!