Postwar Japan (via China)
Gyoza
Pan-fried, crescent-pleated dumplings with a crispy bottom and steamed top — Japan's adaptation of the Chinese jiaozi, now its own dish.
Yaki, not sui.
Chinese *jiaozi* are most commonly boiled (*shui jiao*). Japanese gyoza are almost always pan-fried (*yaki gyoza*) — placed in a hot, oiled pan to seal the bottom, then steamed with a splash of water-and-flour slurry under a lid, then uncovered to crisp again. The result is the *hane-tsuki gyoza* with its thin lacy wing-skirt of fried starch connecting the dumplings. The Japanese kitchen prefers this contrast — crispy-bottom and tender-top — to either pure boiled or pure fried.
4 · Plate
Postwar Japan (via China)
Gyoza
Pan-fried, crescent-pleated dumplings with a crispy bottom and steamed top — Japan's adaptation of the Chinese jiaozi, now its own dish.
A 20th-century Japanese adaptation of a Chinese dumpling. Japanese soldiers stationed in Manchuria during WWII encountered Chinese jiaozi; returning veterans brought the technique home, adapting it to the Japanese palate by adding more garlic, finer minced cabbage, thinner wrappers, and the pan-fry-then-steam method. By the 1950s gyoza was a fixture of Japanese-Chinese (chuka) restaurants; by the 1980s it had become a standard household and izakaya dish.
The Utsunomiya school of gyoza-cooking — heavy on cabbage, lighter on pork, with the wing extending well beyond the dumplings — is the most-decorated tradition. The Hamamatsu school in Shizuoka is the rival, served arranged in a ring on a plate with a small mound of bean sprouts in the centre. Tokyo gyoza shops fall on either side of the divide.
Dip in vinegar-soy-rayu.
The dip is three parts: rice vinegar, soy sauce, and a few drops of *rayu* (chili oil). Japanese vinegar is milder than Chinese black vinegar, so the dip is brighter and lighter than the jiaozi dip. Sprinkle a little ground black pepper if the kitchen left it out.