The first time I had dumplings or jiaozi (饺子) was in Japan, about 12 years ago. It was during my one year stay there, as an exchange student. I saw dumplings and the making of it in the kitchen of the hostel I lived in during that one year.
I still remember the kitchen. It was quite spacious, for a kitchen in a student hostel. It boasted of a refrigerator, a stove with four hobs and a working area that can fit two at the same time. Of course it came with a sink for washing and the kitchen was also well equipped with cabinets to take in all the kitchen utensils belonging to six hostelites. But the bonus is this. The kitchen space was large enough to fit in one coffee table, a two-seater couch, a one seater sofa and a television set. If I remember correctly, the television wasn't small, it was a 32-inch coloured television.
I love this kitchen and I especially love cooking during winter. I would always open the windows in the kitchen so that the cool icy breeze ventilates a warm and cozy kitchen, temperature raised by all those cooking a few of us would be busy with at the same time. It was during those times that I first saw a hostel mate making jiaozi.
My hostel mate was on a scholarship, majoring in Anthropology. And her background was interesting to me at that time. She is Korean, born in China and she considers herself Chinese-Korean. She could speak Chinese of course, but I'd never heard her speaking in Korean. And needless to say, her Japanese was marvelously fluent.
I was pretty fascinated when I saw her making jiaozi. The skin was store-bought as she told me. She prepared the fillings and for her, it has got to be mince pork with lots of Chinese chives and garlic. But what fascinated me most was the speed with which she wrapped those jiaozi. The skin appeared really flimsy, and I could see that she was holding the skin with the fillings very delicately. But her fingers worked at such speed to make those beautiful folds, that they resembled soft fluttering butterflies landing just for a second or two on some morning blossom.
Of course I asked if I could give it a try. She was kind enough to let me handle her food. I couldn't believe how difficult it was to hold the soft skin in your palms, preventing the fillings from falling off, and trying to make beautiful folds as a decoration to seal the jiaozi. Mine was absolutely ugly, but my hostel mate did not mind. She even let me help her with wrapping up the rest of the skin while she heated up a pot of water to boil those dumplings. ^_^ I had dumplings for dinner that day at the two-seater couch in front of the television watching some Japanese drama. It was simply delicious, especially dipped in vinegar and soy sauce.
Back to Singapore and the present. The kids love dumplings, especially those called 小笼包 (I know this is different from jiaozi, but well the dough skin and fillings are similar ^_^), and I have no idea how to make them of course. So this calls for substitution, and the dumpling wrapping skill I had barely picked up 12 years ago was put to the test. This is the second time I made dumplings after coming back home from Japan. The first time I made it, I used Shanghai dumpling skin (store-bought of course) which was slightly thicker. This time, I found a type of skin specifically for making Japanese gyoza. It was just like those skin I used back in Japan 12 years ago! This time, I'd decided to make panfried jiaozi or pot stickers (and in Japan these would be called gyoza), instead of boiled jiaozi.
Actually I've never made gyoza before, I mean the pan-frying part. But I've seen how it is prepared on the various food programs I love watching. The idea is to first pan fry the dumplings with a little oil on one-side, then add some water and cover to let the dumplings steam until water is completely reduced, dumplings cooked through. This will produce dumplings with very crispy edges and bottom, which it had been sitting on the pan, and a soft moist skin on the top, which had been steaming away. For the combination of such texture and the way it is prepared, this is thus called gyoza for the Japanese, and pot stickers (锅贴) for the Chinese.
The feeling of accomplishment was encouraging when I dished out these gyoza. It was of course more encouraging when the food tasting squad cleaned out the whole plate and asked for more. The chief food-taster, aka the Hubby, noticed the dipping sauce that I had I put together. I said "put together" because it was really just putting 3 types of aroma together to create a slightly tangy, salty and smoky dip. I like the dip very much, and judging from the way the Hubby tried to sweep up the last drops of the dip, I think he loved it.
I am afraid I won't be able to provide specific measurements for this entry. I had simply measured out the amount of minced pork meat that I thought would be enough for the family, using my hands. Apparently, it was not enough. Anyway, these are the ingredients, without unit of measurement, that I had used to make the fillings and the method to pan-fry/steam the dumplings making them into gyoza.
Homemade Gyoza
dumpling skin*
minced pork meat
spring onions, chopped to 0.5cm length
1-2tbsp oil
4-5 tbsp water
(to marinate the minced meat)
light soy sauce**
pepper
dash of sesame oil
Dipping sauce
ginger, thinly julienned
3 tbsp light soy sauce (use very good quality ones)
1 tbsp fruity vinegar***
1 tbsp rice vinger
dash of sesame oil
Method
1. Add the marinating ingredients to the minced meat and mix well. Then add the spring onions. The next step is optional but I like to do this to make the meat taste juicier and bouncier. Basically slap the meat about. I know this sounds strange but refer to this entry under "Notes" for brief description. Cover with cling wrap and refrigerate until ready to use.
2. Okay, wrap the fillings with the dumpling skin! This is a step that I cannot explain very well, neither do I have the courage to video it and post it here. Because I can't do it well too ^_^!
Anyway, the idea is to wrap the fillings up with the dumpling skin and seal the edges with a little water. The dumpling would of course look prettier if you can manage to incorporate some folds while sealing the edges. But without it, I don't think the taste would deteriorate.
3. Heat up a frying pan and add about 1-2 tbsp of oil. Once heated, place the dumplings neatly onto the frying pan. It is okay not to leave any space between each dumpling, but do not pile them up on top of one another. One side of the skin needs to touch the pan.
4. Place as many dumplings as the frying pan can hold, and let the dumplings pan-fry for about 2 minutes.
5. Then add water and cover immediately. Let the water sizzle and reduce completely, which would take about another 2-3 minutes. By then the filling would be cooked through, the bottom of the dumpling would be very browned and crispy, but the top of the dumpling would be soft and moist from all that steaming.
6. Dish out and serve your gyoza immediately.
To prepare the dipping sauce, just mix all the dipping sauce ingredients together leaving out the ginger. Add the ginger only when ready to eat.
Notes
* I used Shanghai dumpling skin sometime ago to make dumplings. It was slightly more difficult to manage than the ones I used this time. Comparatively, it was also much thicker than the Japanese gyoza skin I used this time. It could be the practice, but I find that it is easier to create folds using the Japanese gyoza skin than the Shanghai dumpling skin. The former is more pliable while the Shanghai dumpling skin softens up to fast when out of the refrigerator. Here's a picture of the packaging.
** Try to use good quality light soy sauce. I find that good quality light soy sauce are not too salty and richer in aroma. Make sure enough saltiness is added to the minced meat because if the filling is not salty enough, it can be quite a disappointment.
*** Actually this is optional. I used a fruity vinegar, Golden Kiwi Vinegar, because I have it and would like to finish it soon. Furthermore, this Golden Kiwi Vinegar is really sour, and since I wanted the dipping sauce to have some sharpness, I added this. If no fruity vinegar is available, just use rice vinegar.
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