Gyoza Making Class

Atsuko's Kitchen

35 Charlotte Rd, Shoreditch, EC2A 3PB

£69

Atsuko has been running Japanese cooking classes for 10 years, student numbers now in their thousands are educated on how to make dishes such as sushi, gyoza and okonomiyaki. Her classes are suitable for all kinds of people, from beginner right on up to skilled chef wanting to learn a new skill. When me and my best pal were travelling in Malaysia, she asked if I was to learn to make any cuisine what would it be? I answered almost instantly Japanese, due to the sheer complexity of it. A couple of months later I was lucky enough to open an Atsuko’s Gyoza class voucher as a very thoughtful and original birthday gift!

The class is held in a small venue called Ruby Café and has a maximum of 8 people. I was kind of nervous that I would be the only one on my own, but I was one of three solo budding chefs, and we were joined by two couples. Atsuko is incredibly welcoming, friendly and doesn’t make you feel stupid if you don’t do things right first time around. The class is informal and interactive, Atsuko goes through each stage step by step and then gets different people to do different things. I was in charge of preparing the tofu mix for the vegetarian gyzoa (by far the most complex mix of all of course).

Now, I love to cook, and I like to think I’m pretty good at it, but if I’m being entirely honest the class was a lot harder than I’d anticipated - I never knew quite how precise and meticulous Japanese cooking had to be! We made everything from scratch, including the gyoza wrappers which took 10 minutes of heavy kneading before I was told mine was still too dry… this was followed by some rolling, dividing, more rolling and precise cutting before they were left to the side and covered so that they didn’t dry out.

We made over 100 gyoza, which between 9 of us (including Atsuko and her assistant) wasn’t too much considering how gluttonous (and delicious) it first sounds. There were three types: tofu, prawn and pork. Each gyoza had a plethora of addition to the main fillings, think: garlic, ginger, cabbage, onion, sake, pepper and you’re probably halfway there. We also had some wasabi edamame to snack on, and dashi (Japanese soup) to finish. However, I cannot say I made either of these as we did run quite short of time (class overran by 30 mins) so Atsuko took over at the end.

Despite the lengthy process (total of 3 hours) the class went incredibly quick and everyone involved was lovely, making the entire experience very pleasant. It helped that the gyoza were delicious too, as we learned it takes a lot quicker to eat them than it does to make them. Overall, Atsuko’s cooking class was authentic, friendly and thoroughly enjoyable, and I would recommend her classes to anyone wanting to get more hands on with Japanese cooking.