Gyoza Update 1 Stuffed Pickled Cabbage

            Okay, so the other day I made gyoza, which my husband declared as the best dish I ever made.  My only dilemma was that I had left over filling. Yes, I could have just made more wrappers.  I just wanted to try something different.  I ended up with 2 different ideas for the left over filling.  The first one was what I will call a "fusion" type dish.  I combined a childhood dish with this Asian dish.

            What I did was a stuffed cabbage.  The fusion part is that I sort of pickled the cabbage leaves, which is the way I had stuffed cabbage growing up.  Romanian stuffed cabbage if you didn't know, uses pickled cabbage.  The sauce it boils in combines tomato paste, ketchup, and water.  Then it's topped off with sauerkraut.  My great grandfather made the best.

            I know that Asians pickle lots of vegetables, and the dipping sauce for gyoza is tangy as well, so I knew that pickled cabbage would go well with the filling I had already made.

             How to pickle the cabbage though.  I never actually pickled anything.  Pickles are something I do buy.  I found a pickle brand that everyone likes in my house.  It is made by Woodstock Foods.  The pickles aren't too overpowering.  Long story short, I had a jar with just 3 little pickle slices left.  Why not just use and not pour down the drain the pickling liquid in the pickle jar?

             So, I placed the pickling liquid in a pot.  It was about a cup and a half.  I then separated the cabbage leaves from the head.  I placed the leaves in the pot and then turned the heat to medium low.



I let the liquid come to a boil and then covered the pot.  After 30 seconds, the leaves started to wilt.  I then placed them and the liquid in a ziploc bag, removed the air, and placed the bag in the fridge overnight.


The next day, I simply took the leaves, placed a small bit of the gyoza filling in them, and rolled them up.  Then I put the rolls in a deep pan.

I then poured the pickle juice in the pan and added 1/3 cup of ketchup.  I put the heat on medium and let the liquid boil.  I stirred it so the ketchup would combine.  I covered the pan and let it cook on medium for 15 minutes.

 This surprisingly worked out well.  The cabbage did pickle up, and it worked with the gyoza filling flavor.  This was a great combination of a childhood dish of Romanian origin and a Japanese dish.  One thing I might do next time is to add some cooked rice to the meat.  Technically you're not supposed to use cooked rice in stuffed cabbage.  It's supposed to be dry and cook as the cabbage cooks, but precooking does allow for quicker cooking of the dish.

So don't let that pickle juice go to waste!