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Gyoza is one of chef Sylvan Mishima Brackett’s all-time favorite foods—and one of the most beloved dishes at Rintaro, his San Francisco-based izakaya. From a young age, Brackett helped his mother Toshiko make gyoza at home, starting with filling and wetting the edges of each gyoza wrapper, then eventually graduating to pleating the gyoza closed as needed.
In this recipe, a gelatin-rich stock is used to bind well-seasoned ground pork and steamed cabbage, which is then stuffed into handmade wrappers before steaming. If you have a truly nonstick skillet at your disposal, Brackett includes the option of making crispy starch-based “wings” to bind the dumplings just before serving. But the dumplings will be just as good without this dramatic presentation.
Though some chefs might claim gyoza isn’t a true Japanese dish, it is one of those foods, alongside ramen, that has been thoroughly incorporated into many beloved izakayas across the country. At Rintaro, Brackett delegates the making of the restaurant’s dumplings to his gyoza “section chief” Tomoko Tokumaru, a chef from Fukuoka who has led a team of Japanese women in perfecting Toshiko’s recipe—and turning out nearly a quarter of a million
