Chicken and Cabbage Gyoza

Ingredients

• 400 g chicken mince, not too lean
• 250 g white cabbage, very finely shredded
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 garlic cloves, grated
• 20 g ginger, grated
• 6 spring onions, finely sliced
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• about 40 round gyoza wrappers
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 3 tbsp rice vinegar, to serve

Method

1. Salt the cabbage

   Toss the shredded cabbage with the salt and leave 20 minutes, then squeeze it out hard. Chicken mince is already wetter than pork, so the cabbage cannot be allowed to add any more.

   20 min

2. Beat the filling sticky

   Mix the chicken with the cabbage, garlic, ginger, spring onions, soy and sesame oil, then stir vigorously in one direction for a minute until it turns tacky and clings to the spoon. That structure is what keeps the filling in one piece rather than crumbling out.

   2 min

3. Pleat one side only

   A heaped teaspoon per wrapper, wet the rim, then pleat only the near edge and press it onto the flat far edge. Pleating both sides makes a fat dumpling that will not sit flat, and gyoza live or die on that flat base.

4. Fry the bases first

   Set them flat-side down in a wide pan with the oil and fry, undisturbed, until the bottoms are deep gold.

   3 min

5. Steam in the same pan

   Pour in 100 ml water and clamp the lid on immediately, standing back. Let it steam until the water has gone and you hear frying start again.

   6 min

6. Serve crisp-side up

   Loosen with a thin spatula and turn out browned-side up. Serve with rice vinegar and soy, roughly half and half.