Simmered Bamboo Shoot Gyoza
→ Page 114
→ Page 116
→ Page 118
→ Page 120
The Gyoza King’s Double Deep Fried Dumplings
→ Page 122
Light-as-a-Feather Puff Dumpling
→ Page 124
Introduction
Humans have almost certainly been eating dumplings
for about a long as they have been cultivating cabbages
and wheat—or at least since the switchover from BC
to AD!
The personal mission of Paradise
Yamamoto—popularly known as Japan’s
“Gyoza King”—is to spread the gospel of
dumplings as far and wide as he possibly
can. At his members-only “Vine
Garden” pop-up dinners in Tokyo
he serves only dumplings and
wraps each one with love.
This book is his first effort to
teach home cooks all of his secrets
and share the joys of making great
dumplings at home through 50 easy-
to-follow recipes.
Here you’ll find traditional
dumplings alongside Yamamoto’s
own outlandishly new and creative
ones. His desire is to expand your
horizons so that in 10 years dumplings
containing Parmesan cheese and
prosciutto or octopus and fish roe will
be as common as the usual ones filled
with cabbage, leeks and pork.
Please give all of his dumplings a
try! You too may become a dumpling disciple!
4
5
Foreword
Every cuisine has a dumpling to showcase. Morsels of mostly savory ingredients
are stuffed into pockets of pliable dough, then pinched, pleated or folded into
bite-sized surprise packages. Eastern European kreplach, Turkish manti, Chinese
jiaozi, and Japanese gyoza share delicious DNA.
Now the improbably named Paradise Yamamoto has added even more variety to this widely loved but com-
monplace treat. This industrial designer, musician and certified Santa Claus has beaten as eclectic a path to the
dumpling as his name suggests, and is today surely the most creative wrapper of uniquely filled gyoza south of the
North Pole. We met at a café in Tokyo and I asked how he got his name. Wearing his signature knitted beanie, he
told me he wants to feel and spread happiness every day.
I have been eating and making gyoza since I first came to Japan forty-five years ago as a young bride. Through
decades of practice I became proficient in pleating the delicious pork and cabbage crescent. But Yamamoto-san’s
kaleidoscope of possibilities inspired me—and many of his Japanese readers—to break the bonds of convention. The
array of mouth-watering dumpling photos you see
on this book’s cover prompted one Japanese friend to
exclaim “yatte mitai” (I want to try making this)!
Yamamoto-san insists that we not use pre-
ground pork. “Chop your own,” he admonished me.
I did, and was astonished by the difference it made
in the perfectly seasoned pork and mushroom
gyoza I laid before grateful diners. A game of rock,
paper, scissors determined who got the last dump-
ling! He also counsels us not to use the standard
trinity of soy sauce, vinegar and chili oil for dip-
ping. A sprinkling of salt allows the flavors to shine
through. Revelatory!
6
He is as thoughtful about his implements as
his ingredients. His pan of choice is “the cheap-
est frying pan I can find,” because the thin layer
of metal does a great job browning and crisping.
He buys as many as he can when he sees them
on sale, and may splurge by adding a glass lid
that, while still inexpensive, may cost more
than the pan.
In
