The Evolution of a Dumpling

My food-themed posts here are generally reserved for bruschetta related dishes and weird stuff that people eat in Japan, but tonight I'll be showcasing a rather normal, though thoroughly delicious dish that Chieko whipped up this evening. In English I suppose we'd call them dumplings, but in Japanese they're known as 'gyouza'. While a staple of Japanese cuisine, gyouza actually find their roots in China. They are usually eaten as a kind of appetizer, particularly in bar settings. You can find premade gyouza in the supermarkets and convenience stores, but like everything, they are much better when you make them at home, from scratch.
Gyouza come in many incarnations in terms of what is inside of them and how they are prepared (baked, fried, boiled, etc.). In one of our previous forays in gyouza making, I conconcted what I thought was a delicious taco gyouza. I fried up some ground pork, added the taco seasoning, tomotoes, and cheese, then ate them with lettuce and sour cream on the side.
Tonight we went for the most traditional version of gyouza. It's a fairly labor-intenseive process, but the basic principles are not rocket science. We generally bang them out in batches of 30-40. Behold.

It all begins by mixing up a bowl full of ground pork, cabbage, scallions (or something like scallions), some garlic, and a few other odds and ends. Looks good so far!



Next comes the always fun (tedious) process of molding the meat concoction and wrapping it in these little flour-based wrapper thingies. These wrappers are store bought.



Next, it's into the frying pan. The actual cooking of the gyouza only takes about five minutes, and is defintely an anti-climax after all the prep work. First we fry them in a little oil for about a minute.



Then we add some pre-heated water from the teapot. Crank up the heat, put a lid on it, and let the suckers simmer until the water boils off.



The final product. This type of gyouza is usually dipped into a mixture of soy sauce, a spicy oil, and vinegar. Chieko done good.



So now I'm all full of gyouza and debating what to do with myself at this point. Guitar playing is a likely option, but I definitely need some more couch time before I commit to the type of physical movement that will require (i.e. going downstairs, getting the guitar out of its case, tuning the guitar, actually playing it), which puts me at risk of just passing out for the night.
We're heading into our last weekend of vacation before it's back to work on Monday. Cry me a river. I'm actually looking forward to getting back to work; Chieko is of a different mind (we work together if I haven't made that clear by now). I hope everyone has a nice weekend, time for me to not be writing this blog anymore ;-)