Standard Gyoza Recipe

Knock knock… Hellooooo…. Is everyone still there?

It has been almost a year since my last recipe was posted. What have I been doing?! Shocking.

Well, in my defence, 2022 was a really busy year for us. It was in a good way.

In April last year, we decided to take an extended break and spend some time with our family. We stayed in Adelaide for 2 months and in Osaka for 2 months. We then headed America to get our 7th continent done (stopped over in Italy – it was a great idea) and travelled for 1 month. We came back homeless. We somehow needed to move twice within 3 months (three times within 4 months if you count this horrible AirBnB), while I was putting our show on at Fringe World Festival.

And now… It is already March 2023! Yes, time flies… very quickly.

I have a lot of recipe ideas after eating around in the world, however unfortunately I have not had enough time to test and finalise these ideas. So today, I would just like to introduce my super standard Gyoza recipe here as I have never done so. The vegetarian Gyoza recipe was released before. This is the basic one using pork mince.

We really feel that all prices went up compared to before our extended trip. Everything is so expensive now!! I found pork mince is generally a good price and quite affordable, so I started using it more often. Gyoza is just a perfect recipe with pork – delicious and fun to make!

If you are not sure how to wrap, see the video from my instagram page. The key is put a small amount of pork mixture. Do not try to wrap a big amount of mixture when you are not familiar with it.

This is the standard Gyoza recipe, so once you nail it, you can explore your own flavour such as adding different herbs, spices or change to your preferred proteins.

Ingredients (for 40 -50 Gyoza)

• 250g Pork Mince
• 1 teaspoon of Salt
• 250g Cabbage – finely chopped
• 20g Garlic Chives – cut into small pieces by scissors
• 1 clove of Garlic – finely chopped or grated
• 1cm cube of Ginger – finely chopped or grated
• 1 teaspoon of Soy Sauce
• 1 teaspoon of Oyster Sauce
• 1 teaspoon of Cooking Sake (or dry white wine)
• 1/2 teaspoon of Sesame Oil
• Gyoza Wrapper

For Pan-frying Gyoza

• 1 tablespoon of Oil for each batch of Gyoza
• 80ml of Water for each batch of Gyoza

For Dipping Sauce

• White Vinegar (white or rice vinegar will be great) – 1 teaspoon for each person
• Soy Sauce – 1 teaspoon of each person
• Optional – Grounded Chili as much as you want

Method

• Place pork mince and salt in a large bowl. Mix together very well by hand until the pork becomes sticky and slightly pale.
• Add chopped cabbage, garlic chives, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, oyster sauce, cooking sake and sesame oil to the pork. Combine all together.
• Now we wrap the filling with gyoza wrappers. Firstly, prepare a small bowl of water (not included in the ingredients’ above). Place a gyoza wrapper on your palm and put 1 teaspoonful of the filling in the centre of the wrapper. Apply a small amount of water on the top half of the edge of the wrapper with your finger (this works as glue). Fold the wrapper in half over the filling. Using the thumb and index finger of your other hand, start folding the wrapper from right to left while making pleats. 40 – 50 gyoza shall be made.

• Now we pan-fry the gyoza. Heat a small amount of oil (not included in the ingredients’ list above) in a flat-bottomed frying-pan on high. Once the pan gets really hot, turn the heat down to medium. Place the gyoza in a single layer in the frying-pan and pan-fry them for 1 minute. Probably you can place 12-15 gyoza on a 22cm frying pan.
• Gently add 80ml of water and put a lid on immediately. Keep cooking for 2-3 minutes or until most of the water evaporates.
• Remove the lid. If there is any liquid left in the pan, cook them over high heat without the lid until the remaining water evaporates.
• Pour 1 tablespoon of oil into the pan. Pan-fry the gyoza for 3-4 minutes or until the bottom of the gyoza becomes golden and crispy.

• Transfer the gyoza to a serving plate.
• Repeat the process to cook all of the gyoza (or of course, you can use two frying pans and cook all gyoza at the same time).
• Plate the gyoza with a bowl of the dipping sauce and serve while gyoza is hot.