Pot-Stickers: The Minimalist way

Over the course of the last year, I got to spend a lot of time with a group of friends who are ramen addicts. Whenever they would visit Bay Area, they wanted us to go for a ramen, be it for breakfast (I'm serious!), lunch or dinner. Especially for late lunch/early dinner, when you are hungry and can justify humongous bowl of ramen by skipping dinner. I am sure we've tried almost all restaurants that serve ramen in Bay Area and San Francisco, including Berkeley and Oakland with its progressive food scene and some of the best ramen shops. During this time and these fun experiences, I grew to like ramen a bit more than before, but not to the point that I would wait again two hours for a bowl in Orenchi, e.g. What I liked more than the ramen itself was having gyoza for appetizer. Oh, the sweet anticipation of how gyoza is going to look like in a new restaurant, is it going to be crispy and crunchy, or more chewy, what kind of sauce will be served along... Early on, a simple rule was established: I do not share my portion of gyoza with anyone! ;)

There are many types of gyoza, you can read more about it and its origin in these articles: 
http://www.japan-guide.com/r/e107.html
What's the Difference Between Gyoza and Potstickers?

I have a habit of scrolling through NY Times cooking section once in a while and have recently stumbled upon this recipe from Mark Bittman who calls himself the Minimalist. All his 'minimalist recipes' that I've tried in the past proved to be easy and successful: a guarantee that this one would be no exception! 


http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/8185-fast-pot-stickers

I didn't have cabbage, but had brussels sprouts instead. Also, I've used beef instead of pork.

One mistake that I've made is that I've started to make them late and too close to lunch time when I was already hungry. The first few gyozas turned out really nice as I was very careful with the amount of stuffing. As the time passed and it continued to seem that there is still filling for hundreds of more wraps, I've started increasing the amount and few of them were very hard to close... :) So, my advise is to either start making them earlier or to make them ahead and then freeze (they can keep in the freezer for two weeks) or keep in the fridge for 2-3 hours before cooking.  

Have fun! 
Bon ap,
m

Helpful video with folding instructions: 
http://www.tastingtable.com/folding

p.s. I like the crispy pointy end when using the square wrappers, but I equally like the round shaped ones!

More related recipe ideas: 
http://www.foodandwine.com/slideshows/dumplings-gyoza-and-potstickers#1

http://www.saveur.com/around-the-world-in-dumplings