Gyoza Again & Ginger Peanut Dressing

As promised, another crack at Gyoza including: freezing and reheating tips and an Asian inspired salad dressing. See my last attempt here.

 This time I bought some wrappers. These suey gow wrappers were all I could find at the Asian grocery I went to. But they were round and the right size.

Ok, this time. I followed the recipe to the letter. Really! Even weighed out the pork and got the right ingredients and all of them. Shocking, I know.

I even used a measuring scoop to add the filling to the wrappers! But... I used 1/2 tablespoon instead of a teaspoon. I had to rebel somehow!

Ok, the other thing that I did differently was I pleated these wrong. This was not intentional. I thought I was doing it right and then I pulled up the recipe again and whoops. The way you are supposed to pleat these is to pleat the front and adhere it to an un-pleated back. But I pleated the back and front together. Either way, they still held up 100x better than before! The wrapper was easy to work with.

So the recipe says this will make 40 and even though I used a different sized scoop, I got 39. Amazing! After they were done I divided them up, putting 30 into freezer baggies (in 10s) and cooked the remaining 9.

This is the part that I feel I really need improvement on. I somehow can't get the actual cooking part perfect.

I burned them some and a few puffed up like balloons! They weren't full of burning hot liquid or anything, just air. Hmm. I'm glad I have 30 more to practice with! Either way, they were so tasty. This recipe is awesome.

I've often read that dumplings like gyoza freeze and reheat easily. Well I didn't have that exact experience. As you'll recall I chose to freeze 30 of them in bags of ten. When I took them out of the bag they were frozen in a ball. I couldn't separate them. When I defrosted them a little the wrappers stuck together and tore in a lot of places! Even though it really didn't seem to matter, next time I would put a plastic wrap barrier in between each dumpling. I know that seems like overkill, but it was SUCH a pain to separate them. However, if anything they were better cooked from frozen than when I cooked them from fresh! This time I used a cast iron pan too and I think it made a huge difference. It was way easier to cook and the temperature was more stable.

Nate and I made a dinner out of ten gyoza each and a salad with ginger peanut dressing. It's super easy to whip up. It would make a good dipping sauce too.