Steamed Dumplings ‘Gyoza’

I love those little Eastern steamed dumplings. What are they? Wontons? Pot-stickers? Gyoza? I’ve heard them called many things, but to me their tasty little things that I need to have now and then. I’ve made them a few times before using a recipe out of one of my Korean cookbooks, but this time around, I threw it all together from memory and here’s what I came up with. It works!

• 1 lb. ground pork. I took a 1 lb. kielbasa that I recently made
• 2 tbs chives (or Korean chives if you have them)
• 4 Green onions, diced
• 2 tbs. minced garlic (or 5-6 cloves crushed)
• 2 tbs. sesame oil
• 4 tbs. sesame seeds (all I had this time were black)
• 2 tbs. of oyster, or fish sauce
• 1/2 tsp. sea salt (I held off since I had this seasoned kielbasa)
• And pepper  to taste (any kind, black cayenne, I used jalapeno powder that a friend gave me)
• Wonton wraps. I always see round wraps in the books, but all I could find were square

Of course, these can’t be served without the dipping sauce.

• 2 tbs. soy sauce
• 1 tsp. honey (or sugar)
• 1 tsp. rice vinegar
• 1 tsp. lemon juice
• A pinch of the minced green onions
• A pinch of sesame seeds

You can mix up the dipping sauce while the dumplings are steaming.

I prefer to brown the pork slightly. In a previous recipe I’ve used, it was added to the bowl raw. I brown it just slightly and plan to let it finish cooking when I steam the dumplings. When done browning, combine all of the ingredients in a bowl and mix it well.  Take a wonton wrapper and wet the edges with either water, or an egg wash. You’ll see in my pics, there are two ways I wrapped them. I’m not a great wrapper so I experiment a lot. Spoon about a tablespoon or more in to the wrapper and fold it up. Lay them on a plate and let them seal up a little.

Of course I cooked some up, but I froze the rest right on the plate and once they were frozen, I popped them off and put them in a container in the freezer to pull out when ready.

To prepare them, they say to drop them in boiling water and when they float to the top, they are done. However, I have had bad luck with this. Maybe it’s my wraps. They unfolded in the boiling water. Instead, I used my rice cooker and steamed them. It worked great. Once done, I slapped them on a hot oiled skillet and browned them to my liking.

These are really easy to prepare ahead of time and quick to pull out and cook when you want them. You gotta try them when you need a salty fix.