[Food Diary] Nanchatte Sui-gyoza・なんちゃって水餃子

Threw together this nanchatte sui-gyoza (なんちゃって水餃子) soup for a quick Friday night dinner. Nanchatteなんちゃって sui-gyoza水餃子 literally means mock/faux boiled dumplings. They're not actually boiled dumplings, just bite-sized pieces of the filling and the wrappers boiled up in soup. They're supposed to be like dumplings that broke apart while cooking in the soup.

The inspiration for this was Takeru's campfire nanchatte sui-gyoza in the anime Sozai Saishuka. But they look nothing alike... ( ˆ𐃷ˆ )

Takeru's nanchatte sui-gyoza, episode 9, Sozai Saishuka no Isekai Ryokouki.

The recipe I used was the gyoza recipe by RecipeTin Eats. The filling was beef mince, cabbage and chives, as per the recipe, but I added chopped water chestnuts. Just 2 water chestnuts, but in hindsight, I should've left them out.

The soup base is shirodashi (50ml Ninben Shirodashi to 700ml water) with Chinese cabbage, seasoned with a little salt, sugar and ground white pepper, and a splash of Shaoxing Huatiao, silky egg ribbons to finish. The Ninben Shirodashi concentrate is like the perfect soup base cheatsheet. I bought a 500ml bottle to try and find myself reaching for it every time I need to make a quick clear soup.

And properly wrapped gyoza/jiaozi with the remaining filling. Froze them in 3 batches, which we'll likely eat over the month.

I personally find wrapping gyoza/jiaozi easier. I can stuff more filling: about 1 tbsp compared to the 1 tsp for wontons. Jiaozi wrappers are also less delicate, slightly thicker and more elastic than wonton wrappers, so they're somewhat easier to work with. The pleating is something I'm still working on.

If they remind you of crochet jiaozi dumplings I made... they'd be the crochet crescent jiaozi I made for Dongzhi in 2022.

Crochet crescent-pleated jiaozi / gyoza dumplings