I’ve been really struggling to get my kids to willingly eat vegies lately. They might look like little angels, but come mealtime and they grow devil horns.
We will often have Japanese, and they LOVE gyoza. So I figured if I could stuff different kinds of vegies into a Gyoza, they would never know! Gyoza mealtime is so blissful, they ask for more and I never have to ask (over and over again) to have “one more mouthful”. The funny thing about this is Gyoza have a greater proportion of vegies than most of meals they eat – a mum’s dream.
What you’ll need…
4 cups of finely chopped minced cabbage
1 zuchini finely chopped
4-6 mushrooms (depending o the size) finely chopped
1 carrot finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
250g minced pork
2 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
3 tablespoons finely chopped spring onion (green part only)
3 teaspoons of red/dark miso paste
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/4 teaspoon sugar
60 dumpling wrappers (not Wonton wrappers)
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1/2 cup waterDipping Sauce:
6 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
A few drops of sesame oil
Making the Gyoza:
- Toss the chopped cabbage, zuchini, and mushrooms with the salt in a large bowl and let it sit for 10 minutes. Using both hands, squeeze the vegetables to drain the excess water, this will stop your dumplings from becoming soggy.
- Put these vegetables and the carrot in a large bowl.
- Add the pork, ginger, garlic, green onion, miso, sesame oil, and sugar.
- Mix everything together with your hands until all the ingredients are evenly mixed together. Really squeeze the mixture together in your hands to mix the flavours through.
- With a small bowl of cold water handy, take a dumpling wrapper and place a heaped teaspoon of the mixture in the middle.
- With a fingertip moistened with water, run a line along half of the edge of the round wrapper. Fold the wrapper over to cover the filling, and pinch the wrapper in the middle to seal the edges together at the top. Make small folds and pinch the top of the wrapper from the middle out.
- Set aside the stuffed dumpling with the pleated-wrapper edge up, I place them on baking paper to minimise sticking later. Repeat until you’ve used all the mixture, or run out of wrappers.
Cooking the Gyoza:
- In a large non stick frypan with a lid, heat 1 teaspoon of the sesame oil over medium-high heat.
- Place as many of the gyoza in the pan that can fit without touching, with the pleated-wrapper edge up. Cook the dumplings for 3 minutes, or until nicely browned on the bottom. Check the progress by lifting 1 or 2 dumplings and taking a look underneath.
- When the bottoms are browned, use the frypan lid to shield yourself and carefully pour in 1/2 cup of the water. Place the lid on the pan to trap in the moisture (which will steam the dumplings) and then lower the heat to keep the liquid at a bare simmer.
- Check the dumplings after a few minutes. When the wrappers appear slightly translucent and the meat feels firm when pressed lightly with a spoon (and all the water has evaporated and only the oil remains) they should be ready.
- Remove the dumplings from the pan, serve them hot accompanied by the dipping sauce.
PS. If you want to make more of a traditional gyoza, don’t add the zuchini, carrot and mushroom – that is my version to get the vegies into the kids!
I usually double the recipe and end up making close to 100+ dumplings. the great news is that they freeze really well. As long as you separate the layers with baking paper, and minimise the dumplings touching each other.
Welcome to drama-free mealtimes – I love Gyoza night!
Bernice
Hey Bernice! 
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