Gyoza is a typical Japanese appetizer served in restaurants. To be honest, I never heard of this dish before not until way back when I enrolled myself in a Japanese language class. One day after our class, our Japanese teacher invited us over to their accommodation for dinner. Of course, I took that chance to socialize and mingle to learn more not to mention everybody in the class are going, too!

She made the dish as we were chatting so I was able to see how to create it from scratch. Similar to any dish I tried, I usually make a few variation from my teacher’s recipe to jazz it up or to make use of the available ingredients I have at home.

Since then, I don’t (or very rarely) order gyoza from restaurants anymore. I figured that if I know how to make it myself or not unless I am badly craving for it, then there’s no reason to spend more money on it. The only downside to this dish is that it takes some time to prepare as you need to put just enough meat inside the wrapper and fry to cook. That’s why I usually prepare this if I am only cooking one dish or if it is a public holiday so I have a little bit more time in my hands.

So for this recipe, this is not the same with what my teacher demonstrated to us years ago. I usually cook it with just pork mince but for this, I mixed pork and beef mince for added flavor. Apart from that, I also used Irish green cabbage instead of the white leafy cabbage since that’s the vegetable I have at the time.

Recipe to cook Pork and Beef gyoza:

gyoza filling:

500 g pork mince

500 g beef mince

2 tbsp sesame oil

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 cup chopped cabbage

1 small onion, chopped

freshly ground pepper, to taste

gyoza wrapper

oil for pan frying

dipping sauce:

1/4 c soy sauce

1/4 c rice wine vinegar

chili flakes (adjust according to preference)

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Steps to cook Pork and Beef gyoza:

Get a small container and mix all the ingredients for the dipping sauce. I like to prepare the sauce in advance so that all ingredients, especially the chili, is well-incorporated to the sauce. Mix well and refrigerate.

Get a bowl and mix all the ingredients for the gyoza filling. As you may notice, I don’t heavily season the filling since I will be dipping it in a soy sauce based dip anyway. So to lessen my salt intake. But if you want your gyoza highly seasoned, you may add some salt or more soy sauce.

Marinate the mixture for at least 30 minutes and let it inside the fridge during this time.

After marinating, get the mixture from the fridge and scoop about a teaspoon to fill a wrapper. Carefully pinch the edges so that the filling will not spill out.

Repeat until the entire filling mixture is wrapped in the wrapper.

Once done, get a pan and place over medium-high heat. When the pan is piping hot, reduce to medium-low and pour enough oil to fry the gyoza.

Be careful not to burn the wrapper and adjust the heat accordingly. Pan fry until the wrapper is golden brown on both sides.

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