Asian Dumpling Tips

Year of the Snake: Lucky Dumpling Party Tips

It's just around the corner, ladies and gents. The Year of the Snake begins on February 10. By some accounts, it will be one of instability and extremities but will generate overall peace and prosperity. I feel like that is my life in the main.  

If you're looking to start out the year on good footing, consider having an Asian dumpling party. It doesn't have to be taxing. In fact, you can have other people shoulder some of the work, get kids involved too. 

Posted on Vietworldkitchen.com are some party throwing tips along with ideas from the Asian Dumplings cookbook, as well as recipe links. Check it out and weigh in.

Gluten-Free Asian Dumplings: Uses Beyond Pot Stickers

I suppose that you could say that I've displayed signs of OCDD (obsessive compulsive dissorder for dumplings). With a fine amount of dough and filling leftover from making the gluten-free pot stickers, I wanted to see how versatile the dough is. The great thing about dumplings is their versatility, right? With the basic dumpling dough in your back pocket, you can use different fillings, create different shapes, and cook your dumplings in a variety of ways.

So I put both kinds of gluten-free dumpling doughs (see the links below to the three recipe trials) to the test. My findings about how they worked with the various shapes and cooking methods are posted on VietWorldKitchen.com in this post.

Related posts:

• Gluten-Free Pot Stickers: Recipe Trial & Dough 3 (sorghum, sweet rice, and tapioca starch dough)
• Gluten-Free Pot Stickers: Recipe Trial & Dough 2  (millet, sorghum, tapioca, and potato dough; includes tips on working with GF dumpling dough)
• Gluten-free Pot Stickers: Recipe Trial 1 (on Asiandumplingtips.com)
• Guide to Building an Asian Dumpling Pantry
• Tolerance Test: Are Gluten-Free Asian Ingredients for You?

If you have the enhanced e-version of Asian Dumplings, these technique videos are included. Otherwise, see the printed book for details and/or watch my videos below, which are on Asiandumplingtips.com:

• How to roll out Asian dumpling wrappers
• Basic Asian dumpling shapes: Half Moon, Pea Pod and Big Hug
• Advanced dumpling shapes: Pleated Crescent
• Advanced dumpling shapes: Pleated Crescent
• How to shape a rope edge (for empanadas, turnovers, curry puffs)
• How to Fold a Closed Satchel

Gluten-Free Pot Stickers: Recipe Trial 3

What a difference a few years makes. My first attempt at gluten-free pot stickers was in December 2009. It was okay but I didn't go at it again until now. And after going a second round with making a gluten-free basic dumpling dough, I became a little obsessed and went for round 3.  

The second dough made of millet flour, sorghum flour, tapioca starch, and potato starch was pretty darn good. It cooked up to a good chew without being overly rustic. But I was curious about how I could add a little tenderness along with that chew.  I went back to my bookshelves and then into the kitchen.

Was the third time the charm? Kind of yes and kind of no. Check it out on VWK:  

Gluten-Free Pot Stickers: Recipe Trial 3

Related posts on this site and VWK:

• Gluten-Free Pot Stickers: Recipe Trial 2 (with tips on working with GF dumpling dough)
  
• Gluten-free Pot Stickers: Recipe Trial 1 
  
• Guide to Building an Asian Dumpling Pantry
• Tolerance Test: Are Gluten-Free Asian Ingredients for You?

If you have the enhanced e-version of Asian Dumplings, these technique videos are included. Other wise, see the printed book for details and/or watch my videos below:

• How to roll out Asian dumpling wrappers
• Basic Asian dumpling shapes: Half Moon, Pea Pod and Big Hug
• Advanced dumpling shapes: Pleated Crescent

Gluten-Free Pot Stickers: Round #2

Soon after the Asian Dumplings cookbook was published in 2009, people started writing me about gluten-free dumplings. My response was, “There are many gluten-free Asian dumpling recipes in the book. Check the rice, starch, and legume and tuber chapters for ideas.”

As you may know, I tried my  hand at making gluten-free pot stickers in December 2009 and they were just okay -- mediocre, actually. The dough vexed me and I kept simmering on it until I had time a couple weeks ago to tackled it again. I made two (2) gluten-free dumpling doughs to use in place of the Basic Dumpling Dough on page 22 of Asian Dumplings. 

It was a really interesting experiment in which I blended my own flour. I also made unexpected discoveries about working with gluten-free dumpling dough. How I went about it and my technical notes are in this post on Viet World Kitchen.com:

Gluten-free pot stickers: Recipe Trial 2

Check it out, even if you don't eat a gluten-free diet. 

Gluten-Free Asian Ingredients?

I tried making a gluten-free dumpling dough last year and to a s0-so success. This year, I've been inspired again to tinker with coming up with a dough for gluten-challenged Asian dumpling lovers. While I was futzing with the gluten-free dumpling dough, I got to thinking about gluten-free Asian ingredients. I tried some of those ingredients out after doing research via Laura Russell's new Gluten-Free Asian Kitchen Cookbook. 

If you're sensitive to or interested in the gluten used in Asian ingredients, read this new post on Vietworldkitchen.com:  Tolerance Test: Are Gluten-Free Asian Ingredients for You?

Certain ingredients, such as the all-purpose flour used for pot sticker and jiaozi wrappers, are off limits to gluten-free cooks. But as Russell rightly points out, there is gluten in a number of staples used in making Asian food, too. But what this means to you may vary in degrees.  So let me know your thoughts on VWK!

Related posts: Building a Pantry for Asian Dumplings

Dumpling Tools: Tortilla Press Buying Tips

As you may have noticed, I use a Mexican tortilla press to make dumpling skins that are darn close to perfect rounds.  There are several kinds of tortilla presses to choose from and they all have their pluses and minuses.

I was asked yesterday what kind and size to recommend for dumplings and tortillas. In response, I just posted some tips on Viet World Kitchen:

Asian Dumpling Tools: Tortilla Press Buying Tips

Keep on making and eating those dumplings!

Basic Wonton Shapes (Triangle, Flower Bud, Nurse's Cap)

I made my first wontons when I was in elementary school. They were triangles. Because my mother would give me about 3 packages of wontons to fill and fold, I started with the simple triangle and graduated to more complicated shapes. Then I had friends show me their nifty ones. I've also watched plenty of Chinese restaurant cooks fold wontons using a single chopstick or a bamboo spatula. They work at lightning speed. Those wonton professionals have folded thousands, if not tens of thousands of wontons. It just takes practice.

You can devise your own fanciful wontons but it helps to have a foundation to work off of. Here's a video that I taped with CHOW.com for their 2010 Lunar New Year dumpling-a-thon. If you're new to wonton folding or need extra detail aside from what is already in Asian Dumplings, this is the video for you!

 

Video presented courtesy of CHOW.com

Some other helpful links:

• Wonton skin buying guide (tips on finding, choosing, and using)
• Crab Rangoon fried wonton recipe (an American classic)
• Almost Meatless Pork and Vegetable Pot Stickers Recipe (w/ an interesting shape to learn)
• Modern Indian Chile Pea Puffs Recipe(a baked wonton acting like a samosa)

Asian Dumplings Potluck Tips

I love to spread and share the wealth when it comes to cooking and eating dumplings. You don't have to do all the work. Let go and invite others to participate. Aside from organizing a dumpling making party, you can also hold a potluck! Over the weekend, I attended an Asian Dumplings cookbook club potluck organized by 18 Reasons, a non-profit organization in San Francisco that’s part of the Bi-Rite family of locally-owned businesses in the Mission district. About 20 people attended with an amazing array of dumplings prepared from recipes in the book. They totally strutted their Asian dumpling stuff.

My goodness -- there were Korean mandu, pot stickers, Chinese poached water dumplings (shui jiao), Vietnamese water dumplings (banh bot loc), Shanghai soup dumplings, Filipino lumpia, spiced lamb Nepalese momos, Cantonese shrimp rice rolls, samosas, taro puffs, and Indian gulab jamun milk dumplings.  I brought Singaporean spiced pineapple tarts. I’d never seen such a range of Asian dumplings in one place at one time (even my own kitchen). The potluck warmed the cockles of my heart and gave me a dumpling carb overload! (See photographer Emily Heller's montage of images to get a sense of  how much fun we had.)

It was fabulous to hear people's experiences with making dumplings, how they didn't think they could do it and how they practiced and persisted. As someone at potluck said, "Dumplings are instant smiles."