Last week I made the Japanese-Style Pork and Cabbage Gyoza Filling for Dumplings recipe from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook.

The filling recipe itself is straightforward. Ground pork, Napa cabbage, garlic, ginger, scallions, sugar, salt, and white pepper are mixed together until it gets “sticky”.

Kenji calls for ground pork shoulder, but I just used the standard ground pork available at YDFM. I don’t know what pork cut they use.

For the cabbage, Kenji directs to toss with salt and let sit for about 15 minutes. Then place it in a kitchen towel, wrap it up, and twist to get as much moisture out as possible. A lot of water came out, and the resulting cabbage was a tight, compact ball.

Kenji mentions that store-bought gyoza wrappers are not only okay, but frequently used. I got those at First Oriental Market in Decatur.

The gyoza came out well. My son commonly orders gyoza when we go out to Japanese restaurants, and he said these tasted just like what he gets out. I think the cabbage-drying made a huge difference, because the filling wasn’t watery and had a nice cohesion to it.

I’ll keep this filling as an option when we make dumplings in the future.

I am cooking my way through J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. Read more about it.