Jiaozi

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For other uses, see Jiaozi (disambiguation).

Jiaozi

A plate of boiled jiaozi with dipping-sauce

Type Dumpling

Course Entrée

Place of origin China

Region or state East Asia

Serving temperature Hot

Main ingredients Dough, ground meat, or vegetables

  Cookbook: Jiaozi

    Media: Jiaozi

Jiaozi
 "Jiaozi" in Traditional (top) and Simplified (bottom) Chinese

characters

Chinese name

Traditional Chinese 餃子

Simplified Chinese 饺子

showTranscriptions

Manchu name

Manchu script ᡤᡳᠶᠣᠰᡝ

Möllendorff giyose

Jiaozi (Chinese: 餃子; [tɕjàu.tsɨ] ( listen)) are Chinese dumplings commonly eaten in

China and other parts of East Asia. Jiaozi are folded to resemble Chinese sycee and
have great cultural significance attached to them within China. Jiaozi are one of the
major dishes eaten during the Chinese New Year throughout the entire country and
eaten all year round in the northern provinces. Though considered part of Chinese
cuisine, jiaozi are popular in other parts of East Asia and in the Western world, where a
fried variety is sometimes called potstickers. The English-language term "potsticker" is
a calque of the Mandarin word "guotie" (鍋貼). Potsticker was used by Buwei Yang
Chao and her husband Yuen Ren Chao in the book How to Cook and Eat in Chinese,
which was first published in 1945. In northern China, however, "guotie" specifically
refers to a type of pan-fried jiaozi with its ends left open rather than just any pan-
fried jiaozi.
Jiaozi typically consist of a ground meat and/or vegetable filling wrapped into a thinly
rolled piece of dough, which is then sealed by pressing the edges together.
Finished jiaozi can be boiled (shuǐ jiǎo), steamed (zhēng jiǎo), pan fried (jiān jiǎo), or
deep fried (zhà jiǎo), and are traditionally served with a black vinegar and sesame oil
dip. They can also be served in a soup (tāng jiǎo).

Contents

 1Origin and custom

 2Types
 3Fillings
 4Folding technique
 5Variations
o 5.1Guangdong
o 5.2Guotie
o 5.3Gyōza
o 5.4Momo
 6Jiaozi and wonton
 7See also
 8References

Origin and custom[edit]

Pottery dumpling and delicacies from a Tang dynasty tomb

In China, there are several different folk stories explaining the origin of jiaozi and its
name.
Traditionally, jiaozi were thought to be invented during the era of the Eastern Han (AD
25–220)[1][2] by Zhang Zhongjing[3] who was a great practitioner of traditional Chinese
medicine. Jiaozi were originally referred to as "tender ears" (Chinese: 嬌耳;
pinyin: jiao'er) because they were used to treat frostbitten ears. Zhang Zhongjing was
on his way home during wintertime, when he found many common people had
frostbitten ears, because they did not have warm clothes and sufficient food. He treated
these poor people by stewing lamb, black pepper, and some warming medicines in a
pot, chopped them, and used them to fill small dough wrappers. He boiled these
dumplings and gave them with the broth to his patients, until the coming of the Chinese
New Year. In order to celebrate the New Year as well as recovering from frostbitten
ears, people imitated Zhang's recipe to make Jiao'er.[4]
Other theories suggest that jiaozi may have derived from dumplings in Western Asia. In
the Western Han dynasty (206 BC – AD 9) jiaozi (餃子) were called jiaozi (角子). During
the Three Kingdoms period (AD 220–280), the book Guangya by Zhang
Yi mentions jiaozi. Yan Zhitui during the Northern Qi dynasty (AD 550–577) wrote:
"Today the jiaozi, shaped like a crescent moon, is a common food in the world." Six
Dynasties Turfan tombs contained dumplings.[5] Later in the Tang dynasty (AD 618–
907), jiaozi become more popular, called Bian Shi (扁食). Chinese archaeologists have
found a bowl of jiaozi in the Tang dynasty tombs in Turpan.[6]7th or 8th century
dumplings and wontons were found in Turfan.[7]
Jiaozi may also be named because they are horn-shaped. The Chinese word for "horn"
is jiao (Chinese: 角; pinyin: jiǎo), and jiaozi was originally written with the Chinese
character for "horn", but later it was replaced by the specific character 餃, which has the
food radical on the left and the phonetic component jiāo (交) on the right.[8]
Cooking jiaozi in a wok on a wood stove

At the same time, jiaozi look like yuan bao silver or gold ingots used as currency during

the Ming dynasty, and as the name sounds like the word for the earliest paper money,
serving them is believed to bring prosperity. [9] Many families eat these at midnight on
Chinese New Year's Eve. Some cooks will even hide a clean coin inside a jiaozi for the
lucky to find.[10]
Nowadays, jiaozi are eaten year-round, and can be eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
They can be served as an appetizer, a side dish, or as the main course. In China,
sometimes jiaozi is served as a last course during restaurant meals. As a breakfast
dish, jiaozi are prepared alongside xiaolongbao at inexpensive roadside restaurants.
Typically, they are served in small steamers containing ten pieces each. Although
mainly serving jiaozi to breakfast customers, these small restaurants keep them hot on
steamers and ready to eat all day. Jiaozi are always served with a dipping sauce that
may include vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, rice wine, hot sauce, and sesame oil.
They can also be served with soup.

Types[edit]
Four types of jiaozi. Clockwise from upper left: boiled dumplings (shuijiao), steamed dumplings (zhengjiao),
deep fried dumplings (jianjiao), soup dumplings (tangjiao).

Chinese dumplings (jiaozi) may be divided into various types depending on how they

are cooked:

 Boiled dumplings (simplified Chinese: 水饺; traditional Chinese: 水餃;

pinyin: shuǐjiǎo; lit. 'water dumpling')
 Steamed dumplings (simplified Chinese: 蒸饺; traditional Chinese: 蒸餃;
pinyin: zhēngjiǎo; lit. 'steam dumpling')
 Pan-fried dumplings (simplified Chinese: 煎饺; traditional Chinese: 煎餃;
pinyin: jiānjiǎo; lit. 'dry-fried dumplings'), and (simplified Chinese: 锅贴; traditional
Chinese: 鍋貼; pinyin: guōtiē; lit. 'pan stick') also referred to as "pot-stickers"
 Deep fried dumplings simplified Chinese: 炸饺; traditional Chinese: 炸餃; pinyin: zhà
jiǎo; lit. 'deep-fried dumplings')
 Soup dumplings (simplified Chinese: 汤饺; traditional Chinese: 湯餃;
pinyin: tāngjiǎo; lit. 'soup dumpling')
Dumplings that use egg rather than dough to wrap the filling are called "egg dumplings"
(simplified Chinese: 蛋饺; traditional Chinese: 蛋餃; pinyin: dànjiǎo; lit. 'egg dumpling').
Pan-fried dumplings can be joined together by a brown, crispy lattice base created by
pouring a flour and water mix into the pan at the end of cooking. In Chinese, this is
known as "frost" or "ice crystal" (冰花). The dumplings can also be joined together with
an egg base which is topped with green onion and sesame seeds.