Driven to explore alternative gyoza filling ideas, presented here are three gyoza filling recipes: salmon and asparagus, truffled potato, and duck and orange—all accompanied by a flavour enhancing ponzu dipping sauce and some pickled daikon.
Gyoza filling ideas and gyoza dipping sauces
A Japanese interpretation of the Chinese jiaozi, gyoza are a dumpling traditionally filled with minced pork. I have loved gyoza style dumplings for a long time. The standard pork-based filling is great, but I couldn’t stop myself thinking, again, what other gyoza fillings would work. The three here work really well: salmon and asparagus, truffled potato and corn, and duck and orange.
An earlier gyoza recipes post explored alternative gyoza filling ideas as well as presenting three gyoza dipping sauces. This post follows a cooking class in Kyoto, which helped lift my technique by a notch or two.
The standard pork-based filling is great, but I couldn’t stop myself thinking, again, what other gyoza fillings would work. The three here work really well: salmon and asparagus, truffled potato and corn, and duck and orange. Also, check out these beef gyoza (aka bo kho gyoza).
I chose to accompany these gyoza variations with pickled daikon and a ponzu dipping sauce. Ponzu works particularly well as a gyoza dipping sauce. Although not time-consuming to prepare in terms of total time, these two items did require some preparation days ahead. You can buy ponzu dipping sauce, but why buy it if you can make it yourself? The pickled daikon also benefits from 2 to 3 days pickling time.
The gyoza fillings
The ponzu has an optional addition – yuzu kosho. This Japanese condiment, available in Asian grocery stores and on Amazon, consists of yuzu (a citrus fruit) and chillis mashed with salt and then fermented. Just a little can add an exciting extra dimension to the ponzu.
The duck and orange gyoza filling used 2 duck breasts cooked by the sous vide method (1 hour 30 minutes at 58 degC). You could buy a pre-roasted duck and use that instead. It would indeed be interesting to compare gyoza made with breast meat compared to leg meat and roasted versus sous vide.
When planning your preparation, don’t underestimate the time it takes to wrap the gyoza and prepare these gyoza filling ideas, especially if you are not well practised in gyoza wrapping. The good news is that you can prepare the gyoza well ahead of time and store them in the refrigerator until ready to cook. You can even freeze them. One important point when freezing, the gyoza wrappers will stick together, so wrap separately in plastic wrap.
Assorted Gyoza Recipes. Ponzu Dipping Sauce
Ingredients
Ponzu
- 3/4 cup yuzu juice or grapefruit juice, or a mix of equal parts lime and orange juice
- 3/4 cup soy sauce get a good quality one
- 1/3 cup mirin
- 3 Tbsp rice vinegar
- 20 g kombu about 10cm x 10 cm
- 10 g katsuobushi dried bonito flakes
- 2 tsp yuzu kosho optional
Pickled daikon
- 1 large daikon radish
- 1/2 cup rice vinegar
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/4 cup sake or mirin
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 thumb fresh ginger
- 2 fresh chillis
- 1 Tbsp black peppercorns
- 1 Tbsp salt
Salmon and asparagus filling
- 200 g salmon skinless, pin bones removed
- 5 sprigs asparagus
- 3 tsp white miso
Truffled potato and corn filling
- 2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes
- 1 cob corn
- 1 Tbsp Truffle mushroom paste, or diced truffles preserved in oil, or a good truffle oil
- a pinch of salt if using truffle paste, it will likely have salt in it already.
- 1/4 tsp pinch of fresh ground black pepper
Duck and orange filling
- 200 g cooked duck meat skinless
- 1 orange
- a pinch of salt if the duck meat is not already adequately seasoned
Making the Gyoza
- 60 gyoza skins
- Sesame oil
- Boiling water
Instructions
Ponzu
- Sterilise a glass jar and lid in boiling water.
- Add all the ingredients to the jar and mix well. Add the lid.
- Allow to steep in the refrigerator for a couple of days or up to a week.
- Alternatively, if time is short, allow the ingredients to steep for an hour, then bring to a simmer in a saucepan. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
- Drain the ponzu sauce through a fine strainer and it is ready to use.
Pickled daikon
- Peel the daikon and cut into shapes of your choice e.g slices, or in this case, julienned.
- Sprinkle the salt over the daikon and toss. Leave for an hour or two. The salt will draw out water from the daikon.
- Meanwhile, grate the ginger and squeeze out the juice. Retain the juice and discard the solids.
- Trim and halve length ways the fresh chillies.
- In a saucepan, bring the vinegar, water, sake, ginger juice, and sugar to a boil then remove from the heat. Stir until the sugar is dissolved.
- Shake off any water from the daikon, and gently squeeze to remove whats left.
- Clean a suitable container (e.g. a glass jar with a lid) in boiling water.
- Add the peppercorns, chillies, and daikon to the container and pour over the pickling liquid. Close the lid.
- Allow the daikon to pickle for 2 or 3 days before using.
Salmon and asparagus filling
- Halve the salmon fillet.
- Dice one half of the salmon into small (3 or 4 mm square) pieces.
- In a food processor, process the other half of the salmon together with the miso until a paste.
- Blanch the asparagus spears in boiling water for 2 minutes, until bright green. Plunge into used water to stop the cooking.
- Trim the lower half of the asparagus spears. Freeze for later use in a stock.
- Finely dice the upper half of the asparagus spears.
- Mix together the asparagus pieces, salmon pieces, salmon paste, and salt.
- Fill gyoza wrappers until no more filling.
Truffled potato and corn filling
- Wash the potatoes, smear in olive oil, then bake for one hour at 200 degC. Allow to cool.
- Boil 1 cob of corn for 5 minutes. Allow to cool.
- Halve the potatoes then scoop out the white flesh and press through a potato ricer.
- Slice the corn kernels off the corn cob, then break up into individual kernels.
- Stir together the potato, corn kernels, truffle component, salt and pepper.
- Fill gyoza wrappers until no more filling.
Duck and orange filling
- Remove the enclosing membrane of each segment of orange and separate the small capsules of intense citrus flavour.
- Finely dice the duck meat.
- Mix together the duck meat, citrus, and salt (if using).
- Fill gyoza wrappers until no more filling.
Preparing the gyoza
- Wrap fillings into the gyoza wrappers. Use the guide here: https://youtu.be/9uzGezdkuso
- Heat a skillet and add half the sesame oil. Place half the gyoza in a single layer in the pan.
- Fry over a medium heat.
- When the wrapper is starting to brown (1 – 2 minutes), add boiling water, enough to reach a 1/3 of the gyoza’s height.
- Add a lid to the pan and steam over a high heat for 3 to 4 minutes until most of the water has evaporated.
- Take the lid off and add more sesame oil to the bottom of the gyoza.
- Cook for 2 – 3 minutes more with the top on.
Plating
- Assemble a selection of gyoza with a small bowl of ponzu dipping sauce and a pile of pickled daikon.
Kamo nanban soba with duck breast and asparagus tempura
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