How Gyoza Are Made In The Gyoza Capital Of Japan

Hi, I'm Yuji.

I'm from Utsunomiya of Japan.

Utsunomiya is the world capital of gyoza.

There are lots of gyoza restaurants in Utsunomiya.

I don't even know how many gyoza restaurants

we have over there.

I just grew up with it.

I thought it was normal.

I'm very excited to share the gyoza that I grew up with.

[upbeat guitar music]

So idea of Japanese-style dumpling

is you have more vegetables as part of the filling

rather than lot of meat,

which actually makes Japanese gyoza

a little bit more unique compared to other dumplings.

A lot of Japanese food influenced by Chinese culture.

Gyoza are from China.

And then I think a Japanese chef turn it around,

a little bit more catered to Japanese customers.

So the first thing I'm going to do is to cut Napa cabbage.

I'm going to add salt to the Napa cabbage that I cut.

So what it does is it will take all the excess water

out from the Napa cabbage.

Let this sit for like five, 10 minutes.

So this is just normal like tiger shrimp.

Peel the shell out of it and then you're gonna de-vein it.

Yeah, if you see black vein, you just use one of those

like toothpick and then you take it out.

So now shrimps are all clean, I just need to chop it up.

[knife tapping]

It's gonna get messy. [chuckles]

So it's a ground pork.

I'm gonna mix it with the shrimp right now.

You don't usually combine fish and then meat

as a one thing in other types of Japanese cuisine.

So I think it's trying to make a very

like nice, complex flavor

by mixing all different ingredients.

This is called nira.

In English it's called Chinese chive.

Without nira, it won't be gyoza.

Sweet.

And I'm gonna add it to here.

So I'm gonna move on to scallion.

Textures are very similar but scallions won't have

as much strong aroma compared to nira.

It's important to have a sharp knife when you do mijingiri.

Otherwise the vegetable gets just smash, smash, smash

and you're gonna have too much water.

Now the cabbage been rested long enough

so I can squeeze the water out of it.

'Cause you don't wanna have too much moisture in the filling

because if you make dumpling with more moisture,

that's gonna make the wrapper kind of like, soggy.

Perfect balance of everything overall.

It's good.

So this is dry shiitake mushroom.

I'm gonna just grate dry and then make into powder,

and then mix the whole thing.

The liquid in the vegetables and meat

will rehydrate this dry mushroom

and it will add extra umami.

It actually works kind of like as a natural MSG powder.

Great.

So that's good.

Nice.

The tool that I use to make the mushroom powder,

it's called oroshigane in Japanese.

It has very sharp teeth.

It goes in opposite directions

so it makes the grading super, super fine.

When you use this one, you wanna go around it

so that all the fiber will be broken up very finely.

Garlic.

And then that's gonna do the same thing.

Nice.

Smells amazing.

The ginger, garlic, nira.

By just looking at it, this is a good balance

between vegetables and then the meat.

So to me this is looking like a perfect filling

representing Otsunomiya a hundred percent.

And I don't want to keep squeezing too much.

If you blend it too much, I don't think it's gonna be fluffy

because you kind of wanna have a little bit of air

so that when you eat it, it's so fluffy

that you can get lots of gyoza.

If you go the restaurant,

usually they make their own wrapper,

but at home you can just use store-bought wrappers.

So get a wrapper.

Doesn't have front or back

so you can just do any side.

It's very important that you start little

and then if you feel like you need more, you can add more.

If you overstuff it, the gyoza that will open up

while it's cooking.

So you don't want that.

What I'm looking for is the shape.

So it has to have uniformed shape

so it's easier when you close it.

So make sure you don't too much of it.

So it's gonna get only harder to close.

And then you have a plain water.

The water will close the wrapper well

because the wrapper will stick to each other.

And I start usually from the top to close.

And then as I go down, I try to squeeze the airs

out of the wrapper.

So you don't see any like, air bubbles.

And then you wanna have the same space go around it.

So if you see too much filling, you try to push it back.

Like I'm trying to like, measure with my thumb.

So go around it.

After that I usually do one, two, three, or four times.

Yes.

There are three different types

of having Utsunomiya-style gyoza.

One is steamed and the other one is fried.

And then the most common one is gonna be this one.

It's called the yaki-gyoza.

Yaki-gyoza means pan fried gyoza.

The first step is you're gonna heat up the pan

and once it's hot I'm gonna put the sesame oil

and then put five gyoza.

And then after it's cooked and then the bottom is crispy,

I'm gonna add water and then close the lid

and then kind of steam the inside.

After it's completely reduced, I'm gonna open it

and I'm gonna add a little bit more sesame oil

to make the bottom more crispy.

When the gyoza is fully cooked you can see

that the wrapper becomes more translucent.

[spatula scraping]

This happened because there's a remaining starch

from the water, but that will make this extra crispy.

So I wanna always be careful when I do this.

Nice.

These look perfect.

The bottom is crispy.

Filling is all cooked.

So the dipping sauce is gonna be combination

of three ingredients.

Soy sauce, rice vinegar, and then rayu,

which is a spicy sesame oil.

So you kind of make your own dipping sauce.

So this is a kind of crust that you're looking for.

The bottom should be super crunchy.

The wrapper will be super soft and translucent.

And to me this is a great example

of what yaki-gyoza should be like.

So the next gyoza I'm going to make is called sui-gyoza.

Sui-gyoza literally means water dumpling.

Sui-gyoza is a popular way of eating gyoza

at gyoza restaurants.

It's very unique to Utsunomiya.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to steam gyoza

in a bamboo steamer, and then I have just a regular

saute pan with water.

So I'm just waiting until the water

will be a boiling temperature.

And then meanwhile I'm lining Napa cabbage

in this bamboo steamer so that the dumpling won't stick.

Okay.

And I'll just close it

and then just wait until they're fully steamed.

So this will take about five minutes or so.

All right.

So... nice.

Very good.

I'm gonna pour hot water into here

and I'm gonna add dumplings.

I'm adding some blanched bok choy.

I'm going to add sauce.

This is called taberu rayu in Japanese,

which is literally translates as an edible rayu.

Rayu is made from chili with sesame oil.

Next gyoza I'm going to make is called age-gyoza.

Age-gyoza means fried dumpling.

Fried dumping is I think more unique to a restaurant style.

The temperature I'm looking for is right around 350.

It's important to have a thermometer

to check the temperature, but also whenever I fry stuff

I always use little scraps of the gyoza wrapper

to test the temperature of the oil.

When temperature is high enough,

whatever I put inside will float to the surface

and also you start seeing these bubbles.

Yeah, this looks good.

So I'm gonna start putting the gyoza.

The method is very simple.

All you have to do is put one gyoza at a time,

make it nice and crispy.

As it starts cooking, the gyoza will float to the surface.

[oil bubbling]

I'm gonna just add a little bit of sesame oil

to add extra flavor.

This is actually looking very good.

Nice and golden brown.

No gyoza that exploded.

That's good.

I sealed the gyoza well.

Secret ingredient is Kewpie mayo.

This is not how you get it at the gyoza restaurant.

They don't give you ketchup and mayonnaise.

This is my kind of favorite style of eating age-gyoza.

But traditionally it's served with vinegar,

soy sauce, and then rayu.

[upbeat guitar music]

All three kinds of gyoza from Utsunomiya are done.

Now it's time to taste.

The way you're gonna eat sui-gyoza

is you're gonna have gyoza put on this ladle

and then a little bit of your soup.

Just like home. [chuckles]

The flavor is a really good combination.

You have really nice crunch and flavor.

Everything's soft in sui-gyoza but this crunch

really helps to have a different texture.

Age-gyoza, I like to eat with the fingers.

Alright, wow, that's good.

Then I'm gonna go to the most traditional style,

which is a yaki-gyoza.

Very good, yeah.

Having these three varieties on one table

is really Utsunomiya dining experience.

I don't usually have this much time

to make these three things

so I really feel like I'm back home.

I hope you get to make this at home with your family

and then fill up your freezer with gyoza.

[music fades out]