Fun. Moreish. Leisurely. Fingerfood.

Food painting artwork

30 x 30cm oil on canvas. Heavily influenced by kawaii (super-cute) Japanese cartoon animals. If you look closely you may see the giant gyoza in the background.

Nowhere as difficult to make as you might first imagine, but gyoza are a little bit of work (well worth it I say).

Gyoza are a type of dumpling also known as pot-stickers. They are partly steamed and partly fried and very delicious. Especially with an evening of beer, chatting and friends around to help. Usually they are served as an appetiser or snack, but seriously, if you're going to go to the effort of making them, it's worthwhile to make an entire meal of them. No one will complain.

Remember to get a packet or two of wrappers. Wonton, jiaozi or gyoza.

The filling:

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon sherry or sake or mirin

1 teaspoon sesame oil

2 teaspoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon grated ginger

1 cup or 50g of finely shredded and chopped chinese cabbage

6 spring onions, white and green parts chopped fine

3/4 cup or 50g finely chopped tempeh

3/4 cup finely chopped shitake mushrooms - equivalent to 20g dried shitake mushrooms that need to be rehydrated for 30mins and squeezed mostly dry or 80g of already rehydrated shitake mushrooms that have been squeezed mostly dry.

If you are feeling lazy, the ingredients can be put in a blender together. This is much quicker than chopping everything up fine, but the final texture is not as good and you end up with less gyoza (about 30 instead of 38).

Mix all the ingredients together very well. You don't want any clumps of ginger or salt! It's easiest if the ingredients are put in a bowl one by one in the order given and mixed thoroughly after every addition.

Now for some photos. This part is quite simple, just tricky to explain in words only.

It's quickest to work in batches. I can fit about a dozen into my pan, so that's how many I prepare at once.

Take your plain gyoza wrapper...

and take a rounded teaspoon of filling...

and place the filling on one half of the wrapper, leaving a border around the edge. Do not overfill!

Dip your fingers in water...

and wet all around the edges of the wrapper. This is so it will stick together when folded in half.

Now fold the empty half over the filling...

and press down in the middle...

and all around the edges. Done! Then repeat for all of them.

Now for the cooking. It will need to be done in batches according to how many you can fit in your frypan.

So, put enough sesame or peanut oil in the bottom of your frypan to prevent the gyoza from sticking.

When the pan is HOT place the gyoza in the pan and wriggle them about to help stop them sticking.

Fry until golden on one side.

Then throw 1/3 cup or 80ml water into the pan to steam them. Immediately put a lid on the pan.

Leave them for 3 minutes - time it.

Remove lid and remove tasty gyoza to a plate to be scoffed.

Serve with dipping sauce. Hoisin or sweet chilli or soy sauce or chilli sauce all work well. So does this one:

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon mirin

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1/2 spring onion, white part only finely chopped

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon chilli paste to taste

Mix all the ingredients in the dipping bowl.

This recipe makes 38 gyoza. Which is a light meal for 2 or a decent meal for 1.

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More vegetarian cookbook goodies

Need help with conversions? Download this handy dandy pdf of cooking conversion charts for every cooking measuring system I could find. It should make your life easier.

Want to check out more vegetarian dinner recipes? They're all in the Table of Contents.

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