(you say gyoza, I say jiaozi, you say dumplings, I say YUM)
My sister, K, came to visit me over spring break, and she loves to cook and eat almost as much as I do! This year, spring break is the week between St. Patrick's Day and Easter (St. Patrick's and Easter in the same week?! I blame global warming), so to properly honor both holidays, I naturally decided to make a huge dinner of Chinese food with K and S. So maybe it's not a feast by true Chinese standards, but a dinner with more than one course and a side dish is a big deal in Spyhopworld. Not only that, but I hadn't made either dish before (well, not by myself), and K and S had even less experience than I. Still, we girded our loins, and soldiered on into the realm of: Egg Drop Soup, Steam-Fried Dumplings, and Rice!
In reality, this whole fiasco began because I had 3/4 lb. of ground pork hanging around my freezer that I wanted to use for something. By itself, 3/4 lb. of meat isn't really enough to feed 3 people, so I was trying to think of what I could do to stretch it, and then I remembered how much I love jiaozi (a.k.a. gyoza). I hadn't had jiaozi in ages - I hadn't even had Chinese food in ages, and I knew jiaozi were a possible make-at-home food because years ago one of my Chinese professors invited my class to her home to make them for Chinese New Year. We made 400. That sounds like a lot until you hear how many jiaozi K, S, and I made (and ate!) in one night: 50. K and I mixed up the filling, and then the three of us sat down and folded up 50 dumplings at the dining table; K steam-fried them in the frying pan (more on that later), and then I whipped up some egg-drop soup (it's easy). The rice pretty much cooked itself, as per usual. If you added some quick stir-fried bok choi and maybe a dessert, this would make a pretty impressive dinner party. So without further ado, on to the recipes!
Steam-Fried Jiaozi (Chinese Dumplings)
(makes 50, total time: ~1 hour with 3 people)
1/2 pound green or napa cabbage, shredded
3/4 pound ground pork
2 green onions, minced
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon vinegar (traditionally rice wine vinegar, but I used balsamic)
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 package of 50 wrappers (mine said 'gyoza wrappers' on them)
~1 tablespoon oil for each frying pan batch
2 tablespoon water for each frying pan batch
small bowl of water
Dipping Sauce
soy sauce
vinegar
sugar or honey
chili oil
1. Combine all ingredients except wrappers and sauce in a large mixing bowl. Mix (hands are best) until just combined. Don't overhandle.
2. Place one wrapper flat in the palm of your non-dominant hand and put about a teaspoon of filling in the middle of it.
3. Wet a finger of your free hand and use it to wet half the edge of the wrapper (a semi-circle). Fold the wrapper in half, pinching the center of the two edge-halves (wet and dry) together. Pleat the dry edge on either side of this center point and pinch the pleated edge to the non-pleated edge, sealing the edges all the way around the semi-circle. I know this sounds complicated, looking at the photos should help.
4. Heat the oil for one batch in a large frying pan to the temperature you usually brown meat/cook pancakes at. Somewhere between medium and high. Place as many jiaozi as possible on the bottom of the pan - they can touch each other, but each should be on the pan bottom. Cover and let brown ~3 minutes, then uncover, add the 2 tablespoons of water, recover, and let steam ~5 minutes. This is what's called steam-frying. Repeat until all the jiaozi are cooked.
5. Mix dipping sauce ingredients to your taste, and consume!
Egg Drop Soup
(4 small or 2 large servings, total time: ~10 minutes)
4 cups chicken broth
2 eggs and 1 yolk
ground ginger, salt, and white pepper to taste
optional: ~1 tablespoon cornstarch to thicken
1. Bring broth to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer.
2. Beat eggs and yolk together until consistency is even. Drizzle the beaten eggs into the broth while stirring the soup in a circle.
3. Add remaining ingredients. Told you it was easy.
P.S. Thanks to K for some of these photos!
