If you live in Asia, particularly gyoza or dumpling country, please look away now. Find any other Hive foodies blog to read except this one. Because a queen of gyoza I am not - it's only my second time making them, and not that well. But, one of the things I love about Hive is that you don't have to be an expert on anything - we're often just having conversations about cool things, and one of the super cool things in the world is gyoza.

These babies are also called potstickers - little Japanese dumplings inspired by the Chinese jiaozi'. They have a crispy, pan fried crust - which 'sticks' to the pan, and are filled with - often - meat and vegetables, and sometimes with a skirt of some kind of starch so they all come out of the pan at once - which I couldn't be bothered doing.

I decided to make a tofu and mushroom filling.

Tofu & Mushroom Gyoza

• 1 block firm tofu, grated or mushed up
• 1 cup finely chopped cabbage
• 1 cup mushrooms finely chopped (shitake or button)
• 3 spring onions, finely chopped
• 2 very finely chopped garlic cloves
• 3 tsp ginger, minced - I used mine from a jar
• 3 tsp tamari
• 3 tsp sesame oil
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Often the filling isn't pre cooked for gyoza but tofu is a different beast. I wanted to make sure there wasn't too much water coming out, so I sauteed it all first until the water had evaporated. I also added a bit more sesame oil - probably over the 3 tsps here - and I really liked the ginger taste so I kept adding until it tasted how I liked it. I also added the spring onion and garlic right at the end, and then a huge handful of chopped garlic chives!

Then, I used store bought gyoza wrappers, and added a teaspoon of the mix to each wrapper and pinched the ends. Half way through I remembered the fancy technique for wrapping - you might want to look online for that! It took forever, but half went into the freezer. I still don't know if it's more economical to just duck down and get them from Aldi, haha!

To cook, I fried them in vegetable oil until crispy on one side. Then I flipped them over and filled the pan with water about half way up the gyoza and put the lid on, steaming for around ten minutes. The gyoza will kinda go translucent and the water will evaporate, but you might want to take off the lid for the last bit for this to fully happen. I didn't cook the last lot for as long as I thought - I think there's a trick where you listen to the sound, like a gyoza AMSR.

I served mine with a dipping sauce made of sesame oil, tamari and srirarcha to taste but you do you. I absolutely love sesame oil with cabbage - it's a match made in heaven.

I did really enjoy making these, but it's more fun making them with others. I have a heap in the fridge ready to cook from frozen for a quick snack for lunch or maybe to add to a bowl of ramen and vegetables.

With Love,

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