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After going to the best store in the world, I had to try my hand at making some gyoza.

Gyoza are like Japanese wontons.

I used to work at a Hawaiian teriyaki place when I was a teenager, so I knew how to make them. At least I knew how to fold and seal the wrappers. I looked up a recipe online. I didn’t have all the ingredients but that didn’t stop me. I won’t post a recipe, but I’ll tell you what I put in it. Look up a recipe online and use all the ingredients and yours will probably be tastier than mine.

I chopped up some cabbage, some onion, and threw it in a skillet with some vegetable oil. When it was limp, I tossed in a bunch of ground pork and cooked it till it was all browned and crumbly. Then I drained it and used it as the filling for the gyoza.

Nathaniel took pictures but they came out kind of dark.

The wrappers are called dumpling wrappers and I got them at the Asian market.

They’re like dough or pasta—not hard like noodles you buy for spaghetti. But soft like noodles you’d make from scratch yourself.

This is probably a little bit too much filling. You only want the center to have filling. Then you dip your finger in water and moisten a ring around the outside of the gyoza, fold it over, and crimp it together with your fingers, making pleats.

Make sure you pinch the entire edge together tightly.

The recipes I found said to fry them in a little bit of vegetable oil and then add water and steam them. I like them entirely fried, though, so I just fried them about a quarter inch of vegetable oil, flipping to get each side. I used extra virgin olive oil, I think.

Before frying:

While frying (note my Sponge Bob Squarepants oven mitt):

Nathaniel helped me make the gyozas as well as took pictures for me.

All done:

They came out yummy! We had them with soy sauce/teriyaki sauce and rice. You’re supposed to dip them in a gyoza sauce, which is soy sauce plus some extra stuff, but I didn’t bother with that. I’m too lazy—this was already way more work than I normally put in on a meal!

What’s nice is I made enough that I could freeze another batch (before frying, I’ll just toss them in and fry them right from the freezer) and I’ll probably serve it to the missionaries when they come for dinner next week.