Gyoza

Pleating dumplings 8 recipes

• The seam is closed along its whole length with no gap at either end of the pleat run: hold one up to the light and no filling shows through the join. A dumpling that opens in the water was sealed against a wet or floured rim.
• The rim is clean and dry where it meets itself. Filling smeared onto the sealing edge is the single most common cause of a burst, and it cannot be wiped off once the dough has taken it up.
• The pleats are even in size and count across the batch, so every piece holds the same weight of filling and cooks in the same time. A tray that ranges from eight folds to eighteen will not finish together.
• The wrapper is thicker at the centre than at the rim, so the base carries the filling without tearing while the pleated edge stays fine enough to eat. A disc rolled evenly flat splits at the bottom.
• It stands up on its own base without slumping, and the pleats still read as pleats after cooking rather than having relaxed into a smooth seam.

Where it goes wrong The rim was wet, floured or smeared with filling, so the seal never took: the dumpling opens in the pot, the filling leaves, and what surfaces is a slack empty wrapper in cloudy water. Uneven pleat counts across a tray compound it, because the batch stops finishing at the same moment.

Salting to draw the water out 41 recipes

• Salted evenly over every surface rather than tipped on in one place and tossed once.
• Laid out so the water has somewhere to go: a colander, a rack, or a sieve over a bowl, never a flat dish where it sits back in what it gave up.
• Given real time, and there is visible liquid to show for it: a pool underneath, a drip, or a wrung handful.
• That liquid is removed. It is squeezed, blotted or poured away, and the food is dry to the touch before it goes anywhere near heat.
• The dish is seasoned knowing salt has already gone on, tasted before any more is added.

Where it goes wrong It went into the dish still wet, and was salted again out of habit. The water it was carrying dilutes and steams whatever it meets, so the result is watery and over-seasoned at once, and those are two faults that cannot be corrected in the same direction.