Japanese cooking: Moo shu pork Gyoza dumplings (pot stickers)
When I feel like cooking in a flash now and then, I plan weekly menu that include savory Japanese Pancake "Okonomiyaki" (You can see the recipe in the previous entry here). It is very easy to make, and from start to finish, it takes me about 20 minutes.
I usually add whole kernel corns, meat (Frankfurt or ham or beef or pork tenderloin strips), and about half the bag of coleslaw (mixture of cabbage and shredded carrot).
When my mother in law was visiting us, I have made the Okonomiyaki,and she loved it and said that she was afraid of it being strong cabbage flavor, but it was not the case and she liked them a lot.
My husband is not a big fan of cabbage but,if I make Okonomiyaki, he will eat them. It does not make him go as big grin as when he hears "today's dinner is steak", but he will eat them fine.
When I make Okonomiyaki, I usually buy one pound bag of coleslaw bag and use about half of it for the Okonomiyaki, and often times, I plan to make something that uses up rest of the coleslaw bag next.
One of the things I make using the coleslaw bag is Gyoza dumplings (Japanese pot stickers). If you visit Asian stores, or local grocery store's frozen food International aisle section, you would probably find pre-made Gyoza dumplings, but it is pretty costly with small number of Gyoza inside.
And of course, if you eat out at the restaurant, pot stickers will be easy to find at many restaurants' menu, but it is quite expensive despite the fact that it is time consuming to make ones but not much ingredients in the pot stickers to cost that much.
If you make ones from scratch, with about same cost to buy the pre-made Gyoza dumplings, or with the price you pay at the restaurant, you can make and freeze a lot of them.
If you like to make traditional Gyoza dumplings from scratch, you can find the recipe in the previous entry here.
As you can see in the previous recipe in the Gyoza dumplings (pot stickers), Nappa cabbage (hakusai) is usually used for the making of Gyoza dumplings.
However, since I had some leftover coleslaw bag (mixture of shredded cabbage and shredded carrots), I tried using the rest of coleslaw bag in the recipe with a little bit of twist to the recipe and it came out quite good and my husband like them, so I thought I would share my "Moo shu pork Gyoza dumpling" with you.
So, how do you make "Moo shu pork Gyoza dumpling" ? Here is how.
Moo shu pork Gyoza dumpling..
1. Pound and slice 12 oz of Pork tender loin to strips
2. Soak the pork tenderloin strips in 1 tbs of sake and pinch of table salt and let it set aside
3. Chop 2 oz of canned sliced bamboo shoot and set it aside
4. Make a sauce..
** Add 2 tbs sugar, 4 tbs of soy sauce, 3 tbs of sake, 4 tbs of Hoisin sauce and mix well in the small container
5. To the skillet, drizzle sesame oil and when it gets hot, add pinch of grated ginger,and stir
6.When it gets fragrant, add drained pork tenderloin strips and chopped bamboo shoot in the skillet and stir
7. Add 8 oz of coleslaw bag (mixture of shredded cabbage and shredded carrots) to the skillet and stir
8. Add Sauce and cook through
9. make a slurry by combining a little bit of corn starch and little bit of water and stir them into the skillet to thicken the sauce.
10. When pork filling is almost no liquid,and sauce is thickened,turn off the stove and let it cool down
** To avoid filling leach out from the wrapper, you want the fillings without much liquid, and not too much sauce.
11.When fillings got cool enough to handle, start wrapping the filling up.
** My favorite Gyoza wrapper is Wing Hing brand. You can find them at Asian stores in freezer section. It is round,thin wrapper,and one package comes with hundreds of wrapper and if you did not use all of them,you can keep them in your freezer for later use.
** How to wrap the filling for Gyoza dumplings**
1. What I normally do first is to prepare small container with some water in it and set the small container aside.This will be the water to wet the wrapper edge so it can stick together and seal well.
2. Take one gyoza wrapper out from the package and set it on medium size dry plate, and put small amount of fillings in the center of the wrapper and wet the finger with water (dip your finger in the small container you have prepared), and wet the edge of wrapper to seal
3. To seal, take the bottom half of wrapper to fold over the upper half of wrapper and pinch as if making plaits without air trapped inside.
** I thought that watching how to wrap the Gyoza visually would help you understand better so, I will put the youtube video bellow.
How to wrap Gyoza Dumplings
If you are a blog subscriber or reading from facebook,please click here to watch the video.
4.Then, dust it with flour so that it would not stick each other and put them aside.
5. After all Gyoza was made, you can skillet them to serve for the day and you can freeze the rest for later use.
** I usually wrap Gyoza dumplings with saran when I freeze them. Then, put them in the freezer bag.
** How to cook Gyoza dumplings nicely;Crispy outside, soft inside**
1. Place non stick skillet on stove with high heat, make it screaming hot. Add oil , put Gyoza and occasionally,shake the skillet to move the Gyoza around.
2. When you see outside gets crisp, add about 1/4 C water to the skillet
**Watch out for spattering when you put water
** As soon as water hit the skillet, it will make very loud noise and evaporate as it cooks and shake the skillet after adding the water to the skillet.
** If you put too much water in the skillet or skillet was not hot enough, it will get soggy.
3. Put the lid on and steam.
** Keep the lid on until all water evaporated.At finish point, add a drizzle of sesame oil and cook 1 minutes or so more. A little bit of sesame oil to cook with make this Gyoza extra yummy.
4. Enjoy!
** Makes about 12-14 Gyoza dumplings..
I usually add whole kernel corns, meat (Frankfurt or ham or beef or pork tenderloin strips), and about half the bag of coleslaw (mixture of cabbage and shredded carrot).
When my mother in law was visiting us, I have made the Okonomiyaki,and she loved it and said that she was afraid of it being strong cabbage flavor, but it was not the case and she liked them a lot.
My husband is not a big fan of cabbage but,if I make Okonomiyaki, he will eat them. It does not make him go as big grin as when he hears "today's dinner is steak", but he will eat them fine.
When I make Okonomiyaki, I usually buy one pound bag of coleslaw bag and use about half of it for the Okonomiyaki, and often times, I plan to make something that uses up rest of the coleslaw bag next.
One of the things I make using the coleslaw bag is Gyoza dumplings (Japanese pot stickers). If you visit Asian stores, or local grocery store's frozen food International aisle section, you would probably find pre-made Gyoza dumplings, but it is pretty costly with small number of Gyoza inside.
And of course, if you eat out at the restaurant, pot stickers will be easy to find at many restaurants' menu, but it is quite expensive despite the fact that it is time consuming to make ones but not much ingredients in the pot stickers to cost that much.
If you make ones from scratch, with about same cost to buy the pre-made Gyoza dumplings, or with the price you pay at the restaurant, you can make and freeze a lot of them.
If you like to make traditional Gyoza dumplings from scratch, you can find the recipe in the previous entry here.
As you can see in the previous recipe in the Gyoza dumplings (pot stickers), Nappa cabbage (hakusai) is usually used for the making of Gyoza dumplings.
However, since I had some leftover coleslaw bag (mixture of shredded cabbage and shredded carrots), I tried using the rest of coleslaw bag in the recipe with a little bit of twist to the recipe and it came out quite good and my husband like them, so I thought I would share my "Moo shu pork Gyoza dumpling" with you.
So, how do you make "Moo shu pork Gyoza dumpling" ? Here is how.
Moo shu pork Gyoza dumpling..
1. Pound and slice 12 oz of Pork tender loin to strips
2. Soak the pork tenderloin strips in 1 tbs of sake and pinch of table salt and let it set aside
3. Chop 2 oz of canned sliced bamboo shoot and set it aside
4. Make a sauce..
** Add 2 tbs sugar, 4 tbs of soy sauce, 3 tbs of sake, 4 tbs of Hoisin sauce and mix well in the small container
5. To the skillet, drizzle sesame oil and when it gets hot, add pinch of grated ginger,and stir
6.When it gets fragrant, add drained pork tenderloin strips and chopped bamboo shoot in the skillet and stir
7. Add 8 oz of coleslaw bag (mixture of shredded cabbage and shredded carrots) to the skillet and stir
8. Add Sauce and cook through
9. make a slurry by combining a little bit of corn starch and little bit of water and stir them into the skillet to thicken the sauce.
10. When pork filling is almost no liquid,and sauce is thickened,turn off the stove and let it cool down
** To avoid filling leach out from the wrapper, you want the fillings without much liquid, and not too much sauce.
11.When fillings got cool enough to handle, start wrapping the filling up.
** My favorite Gyoza wrapper is Wing Hing brand. You can find them at Asian stores in freezer section. It is round,thin wrapper,and one package comes with hundreds of wrapper and if you did not use all of them,you can keep them in your freezer for later use.
** How to wrap the filling for Gyoza dumplings**
1. What I normally do first is to prepare small container with some water in it and set the small container aside.This will be the water to wet the wrapper edge so it can stick together and seal well.
2. Take one gyoza wrapper out from the package and set it on medium size dry plate, and put small amount of fillings in the center of the wrapper and wet the finger with water (dip your finger in the small container you have prepared), and wet the edge of wrapper to seal
3. To seal, take the bottom half of wrapper to fold over the upper half of wrapper and pinch as if making plaits without air trapped inside.
** I thought that watching how to wrap the Gyoza visually would help you understand better so, I will put the youtube video bellow.
How to wrap Gyoza Dumplings
If you are a blog subscriber or reading from facebook,please click here to watch the video.
4.Then, dust it with flour so that it would not stick each other and put them aside.
5. After all Gyoza was made, you can skillet them to serve for the day and you can freeze the rest for later use.
** I usually wrap Gyoza dumplings with saran when I freeze them. Then, put them in the freezer bag.
** How to cook Gyoza dumplings nicely;Crispy outside, soft inside**
1. Place non stick skillet on stove with high heat, make it screaming hot. Add oil , put Gyoza and occasionally,shake the skillet to move the Gyoza around.
2. When you see outside gets crisp, add about 1/4 C water to the skillet
**Watch out for spattering when you put water
** As soon as water hit the skillet, it will make very loud noise and evaporate as it cooks and shake the skillet after adding the water to the skillet.
** If you put too much water in the skillet or skillet was not hot enough, it will get soggy.
3. Put the lid on and steam.
** Keep the lid on until all water evaporated.At finish point, add a drizzle of sesame oil and cook 1 minutes or so more. A little bit of sesame oil to cook with make this Gyoza extra yummy.
4. Enjoy!
** Makes about 12-14 Gyoza dumplings..
Posted by yassy at 5/17/2011 9:40 AM 
Categories: Asian cooking 911
Tags: food Japanese cooking gyoza dumpling
Categories: Asian cooking 911
Tags: food Japanese cooking gyoza dumpling
OH YUMMY! I totally LOVE these and they are pretty expensive. Thanks so much for sharing how to make them! These sounds so GOOD! I can hardly wait to get some of the wrappers so I can make some!
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I noticed that many restaurants have Gyoza dumplings (Pot stickers) on their menu and you can also buy them at regular grocery stores, but it seems,for me, over-priced, and many of them I have tried are not really the texture of the wrapper I grew up with.
Often times, outside wrapper tend to be doughy, and I get disappointed even if filling was well tweaked to "fusion" style flavor.
If you do buy frozen Gyoza dumplings, get the ones imported from Japan. It might be costly but texture,flavor is much different from doughy skin Gyoza dumplings (Pot stickers).
Of course, making on your own is much cheaper, and you can use the correct wrapper for the Gyoza dumplings (pot stickers), and you will be surprised how much you can make them with the same cost you would have paid at the restaurant.
I see that there are wanton wrapper,Egg roll wrapper other than Gyoza wrapper, but I noticed that wanton wrapper and Egg roll wrapper sold at the local regular store is the same thing,simply Egg roll wrapper is quartered for the package of Wanton wrapper. I checked the ingredients and both were same. I noticed the particular brand of Egg roll wrapper/wanton wrapper comes out very doughy,not crispy when fried and, they tend to be thicker than I prefer,and I do not like them.
The Gyoza wrapper by Wing Hing brand has much simpler ingredients and it makes crispy outside,soft/juicy inside when you make Gyoza dumplings (Pot stickers),and each wrapper is at preferred thickness for me and I like them.
If you want to make "Wanton soup", simply drop the basic Gyoza dumpling into chicken broth with chopped green onion at the end, and cook through. You really do not need wanton wrapper to make wanton soup. Simply use basic Gyoza dumplings made with Gyoza wrappers. The skin would be much thinner and it would not make wanton that are doughy, slimy, thick skinned in the soup.
Flavored Gyoza dumplings like Moo shu Pork Gyoza dumpling would not be a good fit for soup though.
I hope you and you family have fun making Gyoza dumplings,and enjoy them.
Just to make sure that you will get the correct wrapper for this for better tasting Gyoza dumplings.
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