Gyoza

One of my most favorite foods in the world is gyoza. I could eat 30 of them on my own. Gyoza means dumplings in Japanese. There are a million different ingredients you can put inside and my mom will tell you that she NEVER puts garlic in hers, but to each their own. In this gyoza I used ground pork, water chestnuts, cabbage, dried shiitake, nira (garlic chives), ginger, salt and a little bit of sesame oil.

I didn't really measure the ingredients so I can give you approximate amounts... I used a package of ground pork, 3 inches of ginger-skin removed, 1/4 head of a cabbage, a can of water chestnuts, 8 or so dried shiitake (soak in water for 10 minutes and then chop finely) I chopped the nira into tiny pieces (If you can't find nira, you can use one clove of garlic finely chopped) I add about a teaspoon of salt and a few drops of sesame oil.

I chop all of the ingredients and mix together.

Then the fun part. Filling and folding. I remember watching my mom fill and fold each gyoza thinking about how daunting it was. Boring. I tried to avoid her when it was gyoza night because guaranteed she would ask for help. I hated this part of the process, but somewhere along the way this became somewhat therapeutic to me. Now I could sit for hours on end filling and folding them. I got the hang of pleating the tops of the gyoza. You could definitely just wet the wrapper and not do a fancy pleat, but it's a nice detail to add and at every Japanese restaurant you'll find it done this way.

You can fry them, steam them, put them in soup...it's endless. My favorite way is to fry them in a pan with a little bit of oil until you get a crispy bottom, then add a few tablespoons of water to the pan, cover it with the lid and let the rest of it steam.

The Japanese way to eat these is to dip it in a mixture of soy sauce, rice vinegar and a few drops of sesame oil. It's definitely worth the time!