Gyoza, Round I

I recently, and by recently I mean yesterday, attempted to make gyoza for the first time. I've known for a while that I was eventually going to move out of my Thai phase, which has lasted well over a year, with decent results. I thought maybe I'd end up going Mexican or Italian, but it seems as if the Japanese phase is about to hit.

Here's the thing, I've never really been to Japan. Technically. Or in any other sense of the word. Though I have watched a lot of anime (most of it really isn't worth it, to be honest. Occasionally you find a good one, but then all the other ones are just crappy, over-sexed, predictable, weird cartoons--forgive the broad sweeping generalization, but it's pretty accurate as far as BSGs go). Anyway, my point is, of all the foreign foods I've eaten, I've eaten Japanese food the least. But I love gyoza, and I love all kinds of seafood. And in my mind, miso soup is kind of like an evolved, meal version of herbal tea. There's a cool, sort of minimalistic element to these foods that really appeals to me.

So back to the Gyoza. The process of making them is actually pretty simple. The filling is very easy (mostly just combining chopped vegetables and meat), and then you just have to get the motion of folding the little gyoza wrappers. This takes some practice, but messing it up isn't going to have any drastic consequences. You could probably go spill some milk after and still not cry about it.

The final step is the only part I had any real trouble with. Pan-frying is not a complex technique. Pan frying is a fry followed by a steam, so you heat up a little oil, fry your dumplings for about 2 minutes, then pour on water and steam them. My first two batches went fine. The third batch proved to be the, uh, charm. On my third batch, when I poured the water in, I got an incredibly loud and violent reaction which you could also get by mixing baking soda, vinegar, and napalm (Note: if you somehow manage to get a hold of napalm, do not try this anywhere except on the moon, where you and you alone will have to face the consequences of your choices). It died down after a couple of seconds and the gyoza came out fine. Unfortunately, I got the same thing on my fourth batch as well. My guess--and I'll have to have someone smarter than me confirm this--was that because the pan was so hot already, the oil was closer to its smoke point (a principle I admittedly don't understand) when I added the water. So next time I'm going to try to keep it to two batches, or just fry the gyoza at a lower temperature.

And by the way, despite the nuclear minicaust that took place, the gyoza tasted awesome. I ate over 20 of them.

Here's a link to the recipe:
http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-make-gyoza-dumplings