Hello friends! Please say hi to Rachael, who’ve I’ve been mentoring in the blog-world as a Steamy Kitchen intern.

She’s a kick-ass gyoza ninja and I’ve asked her to write up her super-secret recipe for these savory pan-fried Japanese style dumplings.

Rachael lived in Japan for a number of years and here’s her story and a step by step photo tutorial on how to make Gyoza.

xoxo Jaden

How did a girl who was born in the Rocky Mountains and raised in California and who graduated with French and Law degrees end up writing a food blog called La Fuji Mama and striving to perfect her gyoza recipe?  The story starts seven and a half years ago when I married a man who had lived and studied in Japan.  Six months into our marriage, we moved to Japan, a place completely foreign to me.  Before my marriage, I had traveled all over Europe and lived in Paris, but I had never imagined that I would ever live in Asia.  But there I was, living on the outskirts of Yokohama in a tiny little 400-square-foot, two-bedroom apartment in a neighborhood devoid of any other foreigners.

My kitchen consisted of a large sink, a gas range with two burners and a “fish fryer” beneath the burners (like a little mini broiler), a refrigerator that was considerably shorter than I was, a toaster oven, and two cupboards. I spent my free time exploring, eating, watching and listening, and loving each moment more than the last.  After almost a year, we returned to the States.  Three years later, my husband’s company asked him to transfer to Tokyo, which he happily agreed to.  I soon found myself living in Japan for the second time, this time in downtown Tokyo, in a slightly larger 950-square-foot, three-bedroom apartment, with a slightly larger kitchen, and a spectacular view of Mt. Fuji.

I quickly settled into life, feeling much more comfortable the second time around, and trying to embrace the experience.  Our ties to Japan were further strengthened by the birth of our first child in a Japanese hospital.  A piece of my heart will always be in Tokyo because of that experience.

Our move back to the US a year ago was a difficult one, but we try to keep the “homesickness” for Japan at bay with trips to Mitsuwa (our nearest Japanese grocery store) and lots of home cooked Japanese meals.

My first foray into Japanese home cooking started a few weeks after we moved to Japan the first time.  One of my neighbors, a woman named Miki, periodically knocked on my door to ask if I wanted to “cook and talk.”   I looked forward to those knocks – they meant that I got to accompany her to her apartment and spend an hour with her, helping her to both cook a meal and practice her English.  It was in her kitchen that I stuffed and pleated my first gyoza.

Miki made it look easy–her hands rhythmically pleating the top layer of the gyoza wrapper and simultaneously pinching it against the smooth bottom layer as she went–finishing each gyoza within moments of having started it.  My first gyoza took me forever to complete, looked sloppy, and didn’t hold together well when cooked.  But with a few pointers from Miki, my gyoza quickly started to look more as they should (although I still can’t stuff and pleat a gyoza as fast as she could).

Over the last seven years I’ve tweaked the gyoza recipe I learned from Miki, adjusting the amounts of ingredients here and there to suit our palates, and adding a couple of ingredients used by other wonderful Japanese cooks I’ve met along the way.  The recipe I’m going to share with you today is that recipe in its latest form (though ask me again in a few months and it will probably already be slightly different).

My most recent adjustment to the gyoza recipe is in the technique I use when mixing the filling.  In Elizabeth Andoh’s cookbook, Washoku, she describes a method that helps tenderize the meat and helps hold the filling together.  She explains that it’s “a bit like baseball practice” because you are gathering the filling into a ball and throwing it back into the bowl repeatedly. The bonus to the technique is that you get to play with your food.

How to make Gyoza

Gyoza are really easy to make.  Just mince, grate, and measure out your ingredients as called for,

and then mix the gyoza ingredients together in a bowl using your hands. 

Yep, you’ve gotta get your hands dirty to make these!  Next you’ll use Elizabeth Andoh’s “baseball practice” technique.  Scoop up the mixture into a ball with your hands and throw it back with some force into the bowl. Repeat this several times to tenderize the meat and help the mixture stick together.  Now it’s time to form your gyoza.  Put a bit of the meat mixture in the center of a wrapper, get your fingertip wet and then trace a line around half of the wrapper.

Then you fold the wrapper in half over the filling,

and pinch it in the center.

Now comes the fun part–the pleating! Holding the wrapper in that middle spot that you just pinched with your left hand, make a pleat in the top part of the wrapper, pinching it against the flat edge of the wrapper at the back.

Holding the filled half-circle in the left hand, pleat the top of the wrapper from the middle out, pressing it to the flat edge of the wrapper at the back (only the front edge will be pleated–the back edge stays flat).  Proceed to make two or three more pleats to the right of the first pleat.

Then switch sides and pleat the other side (to the left of the pinched middle).

Set aside the stuffed dumpling with the pleated-wrapper edge up.

Repeat the process until all of your wrappers have been filled and pleated.  It’s always nice to have a partner in crime for this part because it goes a lot quicker.

Now you can either cover the gyoza with some plastic wrap and put them in the fridge for a couple of hours until you’re ready to cook them (or you could freeze them to keep them for longer) or you can cook them right away.  The gyoza are first fried on their flat side (pleats up),

until the bottom is nice and brown.

Then, water is added and the pan sealed with a lid

until the upper part of the gyoza is steamed.

Then you serve them browned side up with a dipping sauce made from soy sauce, rice vinegar, and a few drops of chili oil.

If you can’t find round gyoza wrappers, you can always use square wonton wrappers and cut them into circles using a large biscuit cutter.

Or you can really go all out and make your own wrappers.

These gyoza have a hint of heat from the addition of crushed red chili pepper.  They also contain aka miso paste (red/dark miso paste), which has a wonderful pungent salty flavor.  If you cannot find aka miso paste, you can either leave it out altogether, or subsitute shiro miso paste (white miso paste).  If you leave the miso out, increase the salt by 1/2 teaspoon.  If you substitute shiro miso paste, leave out the sugar and increase the salt by 1/4 teaspoon.

The world has gone bacon crazy, and unfortunately it has nothing to do with the food item actually made from pork belly. I’m talking about products sold in tubes, squeeze bottles, jars, cans and tablets, all flashing the word “Bacon!” as it’s only selling point and not an ounce of real pork in its ingredients. Apparently, that one word is so powerful, the products are still flying off the shelves!

I’ve seen “bakon” vodka (Twitter member @MarcSeattle said it tastes like “bac-os mixed with motor oil”), zero-calorie bacon flavor spray packaged in a hairspray-like bottle by celebrity chef David Burke, cardboard bacon air freshener that you can dangle from your rearview mirror and even bacon-flavored lip balm. When did pretending to staple two strips of fatty pig to lips become sexy?

I recently visited a friend who happens to be a vegetarian. Before I could even put my purse down and exchange pleasantries, she excitedly thrust a jar at me, “This is my newest obsession…bacon flavored mayonnaise…Baconnaise! Isn’t it genius!?” Though I have to admit, it’s not that bad in a sandwich. And I get the excitement, especially for those who are omnivores-turned-vegetarians but miss the whole meat flavor thing.

For me, I’d rather have the real deal. Spraying “bacon” flavoring on my eggs in the morning just seems so pathetic! And there’s no better way to enjoy steak than to slather it with a butter made of real bacon and real blue cheese!

Step-by-Step: Bacon and Blue Cheese Butter

First thing you’ve gotta do is cook your bacon and then mince it up in teeny tiny pieces. You should also crumble your blue cheese if it’s not crumbled already.

Soften your butter to room temperature — I use unsalted butter because the bacon and blue cheese are already salty. Smash, smush and mix with a fork.

Grab a large piece of parchment paper and plop down your bacon near the edge.

Now time to dust off your cigar-rolling/cigarette rolling or whatever rolling skills you have and roll the butter tight in the parchment paper, smoothing and evening out the butter so that it becomes a nice, tight, even log about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Though, really, size doesn’t matter in this case. If you want a bigger butter log, go for it. But make sure you’re rolling and smoothing tight because you don’t want air bubbles or lumps.

Twist the ends tight (to compact butter even more). Refrigerate until firm, an hour should do the trick …or if you run out of time, stick it in the freezer for 20 minutes.

Ladies and gent…may I present to you umami-ness….Bacon and Blue Cheese Butter. Open that baby up and slice into 1/2-inch coins. You can use this butter on vegetables, fish, baked potatoes….ooooh….baked potatoes….

….or top a hot, just-taken-off-the-grill steak with a slab of this precious Bacon and Blue Cheese Butter.

My mom is a Chinese dumpling wrapping queen. She can mix up a batch of filling ingredients and fold them into perfect, little half-moon dumplings faster than the time it takes me to set the table. Mom will usually sit at the breakfast table facing the television and while watching her favorite Chinese soap opera, she’ll be pleating those suckers without once looking down. The problem is that during emotional moments of the dramatic soap, her dumplings would look, well, sad. So, the lesson is, watch happy shows, get happy, fat dumplings!

There’s a brand new book out written by my friend Andrea Nguyen and it’s called  Asian Dumplings. With full color photos, step-by-step illustrations on how to wrap over 75 Asian dumplings from samosas to spring rolls, it’s definitely a book I’d recommend. I’ve adapted her Chinese water dumpling recipe for you to try. The folding technique is simple enough for you master while watching a light-hearted, happy show on TV.

How to Fold Chinese Dumplings

Step 1: Place about a tablespoon of filling in the middle of the wrapper. Dip your finger in the cornstarch slurry and paint the top half’s edge. If you put too much slurry on the wrapper, it will get soggy and make it difficult to fold. So just the top half– along the edge.

Step 2: Bring the bottom edge up to meet the top.

Step 3: Pinch the center.

Step 4: Now pinch the rest of the edges together – use the meaty part of your thumb to really pinch and seal good, while pushing any extra air out of the dumpling.

I go over the edge, pinching one more time, to ensure there are no holes. If you have a hole, dumpling filling will leak out.

There should be no air bubbles in the Chinese dumplings – the middle is all filling. Air bubbles will cause the dumpling to rupture when you boil them.

Step 5: Lay them flat out on a plate or baking sheet, keep them covered with a barely damp towel or plastic wrap. Try to give each dumpling space – so that they don’t stick to each other.  Cook the Chinese Dumplings (see recipe below) or cover and refrigerate if you are cooking same-day. Freeze as-is on the plate/baking sheet if saving for another day. Once frozen, you can gather them up and put them in a freezer bag.

It’s week 3 of the Summer Fest! Last week we all made recipes using fruit from trees, and this week it’s all about Beans and Greens. If you haven’t yet heard about Summer Fest, it’s a four-week celebration of fresh-from-the-garden food: recipes, growing tips, even tricks for storing and preserving summer’s best with my co-hosts White on Rice, Away to Garden, Gluten-Free Girl and Matt Bites. Of course, It’s not a party without your participation! And I’ll tell you how in just a bit.

My choice in the greens category is Chinese Broccoli or Gai-Lan (guy-LAHN) my favorite Asian vegetable. Earlier this year, I grew gai-lan in our garden….and failed. The failure had nothing to do with the vegetable itself, it was just me traveling too much and giving very little garden love to poor gai-lan.

So, I’m going to give you step-by-step photo instructions on how to make this “most flavorful noodle dish in the world” recipe from Corrine Trang’s new book called Noodles Every Day.

Chinese Broccoli (Gai-Lan)

I have a modest garden, and there are some vegetables that my boys have laid claim to. One of them was regular broccoli and the other Chinese broccoli. They wanted to see how big the broccoli could get and refused to let me even touch them!

You have no idea the patience and willpower it took for me to NOT cut the broccoli! I had nightmares about this thing.

While the broccoli still tasted great, even after being plucked a bit past its prime…but unfortunately, that’s not how Chinese broccoli works. Once the Chinese broccoli stem starts shooting up, and before it begins flowering, that’s the time to pick and enjoy them.

If you wait too long and the flowers open up, the Chinese broccoli becomes bitter. You can also tell from the cut stems if the Chinese broccoli will be perfect or too old. See the bottoms of these cut stems? It’s milky-transluscent and smooth.

If the bottoms of the stem have a hard white circle in the middle (instead of smooth, milky and translucent) it will probably be past its prime and taste tough and bitter. Well, our home-grown Chinese broccoli grew VERY TALL and bloomed with small white flowers…but tasted so bitter. boo.

Photo below is store-bought Chinese Broccoli…see the beautiful stem-bottoms?

So, the lesson learned — I’m putting the kids in charge of a different vegetable this year…maybe something that grows super-fast and tall…corn?

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For this Broccoli Beef Noodle Stir Fry recipe, you can use ANY type of noodles. Really, spaghetti noodles are fantastic in this dish. I happened to have Japanese style egg-noodles, so that’s what I used! Cook your noodles according to package directions.

While the noodles are cooking, marinate the beef slices in soy sauce, cornstarch, sugar, oyster sauce and rice wine. If you don’t have rice wine, use dry sherry or any dry white wine will do. The sugar and the oyster sauce will help the meat caramelize.

You want beautiful, carmelized meat in your stir fry?

Here’s the secret. DO NOT CROWD THE MEAT! Single layer, ladies and gents!

Once you add it to the wok or frying pan, LEAVE THE THING ALONE. Resist the temptation to shake, move it around or flip…until the first side has a chance to caramelize. Then flip.

See the nicely caramelized bits?

Once the meat finishes cooking, remove to a plate. Now it’s time for Chinese Broccoli (Gai Lan).

Stir fry for a minute, scooping up the oils at the bottom of the wok all over the Chinese Broccoli. Bathe the oil over the Chinese Broccoli.

Now turn heat down, add 1/4 cup of water or browth and cover to let steam.

A couple of minutes later…test the Chinese Broccoli to see if done! A knife should pierce easily into the steam.

Now its the cooked noodles turn to take a bath in the sauce.

See it absorb all the juicy bits?

Now return the beef and broccoli to the wok and serve!!

Yum.

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How you can join Summer Fest

Summer Fest 2009 is a four-week, cross-blog celebration co-created (alphabetically listed) by A Way to Garden, Matt Armendariz of Mattbites, Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen, and Todd and Diane of White on Rice Couple, with guest appearances from Shauna and Daniel Ahern of Gluten-Free Girl, Simmer Till Done’s Marilyn Pollack Naron, and Paige Smith Orloff of The Sister Project. And from you -that’s critical. Your contributions are desired, and needed.

Will you play along? Have a recipe or tip that fits any of our weekly themes? Starting today, with the subject of herbs, you can contribute in various ways, big or small. Contribute a whole post, or a comment -whatever you wish. It’s meant to be fun, viral, fluid. No pressure, just delicious. The possibilities:

Simply leave your tip or recipe or favorite links in the comments below a Summer Fest post on my blog, and then go visit my collaborators and do the same.

The cross-blog event idea works best when you leave your recipe or favorite links (whether to your own blog or someone else’s) at all the host blogs. That way, they are likely to be seen by the widest audience. Everyone benefits, and some pretty great dialog starts simmering.

Or think bigger: Publish entire entire posts of your own, if you wish, and grab the juicy Summer Fest 2009 tomato badge (illustrated by Matt of Mattbites).

Summer Fest 2009 Schedule:

• Tuesday, July 28: HERBS. Any and all.

• Tuesday, August 4: FRUITS FROM TREES (also known as stone fruits, but we won’t scream if you toss in a berry or another fruit, promise).

• Tuesday, August 11: BEANS-AND-GREENS WEEK (either or both, your choice).

• Tuesday, August 18: TOMATO WEEK. How do you like them love apples?

What did my co-hosts make for the Summer Fest Party?

Diane and Todd make a salad with the TOPS of radishes, beets and carrots!

A beautiful Kale Frittata from Margaret of Away to Garden

Shauna joins us this week with her very first home=grown salad ever!

Simply gorgeous – Matt Armendariz shares one of his top 5 fav recipes of all time.

My parents live in Los Angeles and until just recently, so did my brother. About three times a year, I go back to LA to hang out with the family, get my In-N-Out Burger fix and get the very important big dose of smog and traffic. It’s important because it gives me that fantastic talking point when the Los Angelenos ask me, “why the heck did you move to Bradenton, Florida?” Hmmm…well, let me cough the reasons!

Just a few days ago, my brother, Jay, packed his bachelor belongings in a moving truck and moved to Wichita, Kansas to start a brand new fancy job as a Doctor of Cardi-$dollar$-gy. At first, I was like, “Are you crazy? Giving up living in Beverly Hills to go live in Kansas?”

Not that I have anything against the good state of Kansas, it’s just that it’s a totally different lifestyle than the fast-paced, Botox’d, diamond-studded city of Angels.

Last night, Jay called. He’d just arrived after a couple days of driving to his new home, “Hey sis, you must come and visit. FOR THE BAR-B-QUE!!!” He went on to describe the pulled pork and smoked ribs that he’s sampled in the past 24 hours.

That was a good enough reason to commit one of the most important holidays of the year, Thanksgiving, to haul my family to Wichita, Kansas for a week’s vacation. And it got me thinking. Take award-winning barbequed pulled pork and combine it with an Korean style barbeque sauce and a puckery Asian cucumber relish. The result is something you’d find on the street corner of Cahuenga and Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, the Kogi BBQ truck.

As I’m sure you’ve heard, Kogi is the hottest thing to hit the streets of Los Angeles (literally!), smashing standard taco truck fare with the zing and spice of Korean flavors. They use Twitter to announce their itinerary for that evening and serve hundreds of people at each stop. Sometimes, the lines form an hour before the truck even arrives and snakes carelessly around cars, fire hydrants and benches.

I haven’t sampled their fare, I gave one of the owners, Alice Shin, a call and told her that I’d like to make a pulled pork taco from smoked pulled pork. Alice was able to nudge their chef, Roy Choi, into creating a BBQ sauce to match the deep smoky flavor of traditional BBQ’d pulled pork.

This recipe is mid-west meets Los Angeles. Good luck with your new adventure, my brother.

Korean Style Tacos with Kogi BBQ Sauce on Daytime TV

I would have loved to pair good ol’ spicy kimchi with these tacos, but my local Asian store had really sad looking kimchi. So, last minute, I decided to create a quick cucumber pickle for television as well as the photo shoot.

Dr. BBQ and I tag teamed that morning on a Daytime segment – he made his very famous pulled pork smoked in the Big Green Egg in a Carolina Pulled Pork Sandwich with Spicy Tangy Slaw (I also posted the video) – and I took his leftovers to make these Korean Style Tacos with Kogi BBQ Sauce.

hey, p.s. the video shows you what happens when you forget your dang mandoline and end up slicing cucumbers by hand in a hurry. They look like hockey pucks. Use a mandoline.

Thank you Sur La Table for providing the Shun Perfect Paring Knife and the beautiful Foldable Grilling Tools

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Other great recipes from around the web

Kimchi Recipe by David Lebovitz
Bulgogi Kimchi Tacos by My Korean Kitchen
Korean Beef Tacos by Week of Menus
Korean Short Rib Tacos by Tasty Eats at Home
Kimchi Pork Belly Pizza by No Recipes