Thursday, January 6, 2011

Making Gyoza Skins






When cooking in batches, its always good to make dishes that can either be eaten as a meal on its on or prepared as a side dish to your mains. It is also good to consider making something that you can freeze in batches!

One of my favourite things to make that I can freeze and eat it with soup, rice and noodles - would be gyoza or potstickers also plainly known as 'dumplings'. Gyoza was popularised in Japan during World War II, during the Chinese invasion in 1930. It incorporates ingredients that are usually minced and all of it just mixed in together. 

Other than the filling, the skin of the gyoza is just as important. Making the skin too thick, you create a rather doughy dumpling. You can easily find the gyoza skins ready made in supermarkets, but the whole point of this excercise is to practice making things from scratch to make your pockets fuller at the same time keeping your tummy filled!


This recipe comes up to less then MYR 2.00 you can make batches and batches to keep. Your gyoza skins kept in the fridge could last up to a month. But it is best to fill your gyoza's up immediately if you can.


What you need:


Option A
2 cups of all purpose flour
a pinch of salt
hot water (enough to hold the dough together)



Option B
1 cup of all purpose flour
1 cup of rice flour
a pinch of salt
hot water (enough to hold the dough together)

I've used both the mix, the all purpose flour makes the dough a bit heavier, were as the rice flour mix makes the skin much more lighter and when crispier when fried.




Mix all the above in a bowl till it forms a soft dough. Leave to rest for about an hour. After an hour punch the dough a bit more to let out the air. Make sure you cover the dough with a damp towel to avoid it from drying up. When ready, make equal part dough balls - as big as a tennis ball. Then roll it out to a 1 inch log and cut them into 1 inch sized cubes.


To make perfect circles, I use this egg shaper. To know if you got the right thickness, the skin should be thin enough to let light shine through the dough like the photo below. At the end - you'll have a stack of gyoza skins, which you should wrap with a plastic wrap. Make sure to dust each layer with a bit of flour to prevent it from sticking to each other.





4 comments:

  1. Hi, I made wrappers for the first time the other day due to this post. I used whole wheat flour and brown rice flour for the dough. Anyway, even though I put sufficient amounts of flour between each wrapper, it all clumped and melded together when I took it out of the fridge 2 days later. How do you suggest to store wrappers when you're making them in advance? (I ended rolling the dough together of the stuck-together wrappers and making new ones)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dusting each wrapper with cornstarch stops them from clumping.

      Delete
    2. Thanks for the reply Margo. Yes, cornstarch does help with the clumping as well.

      Delete
  2. Hi there,

    Here are 2 possible options you can use:

    1) You can layerin between each skin a bit of waxed baking paper. This should prevent it from clumping to each other.

    2) You can also layer the sheets onto a metal tray and freeze it. once its frozen you can transfer it into a ziplock bag. When you take it out, be sure to remove them from the ziplock bag and lay it out on a flat surface to defrost a little to allow yourself to shape them.

    ReplyDelete

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