What doesn’t taste good in a dumpling? Good question. Another: Is there any festive occasion whose theme can’t be dumpli-fied? I say there is definitely not. So when Super Bowl LII weekend was approaching, and I realized that one of the teams playing was the Philadelphia Eagles, I decided to make dumplings with a filling a la the city’s signature hoagie. Cheesesteak Dumplings aren’t that different from Cheeseburger Dumplings, after all.
Here’s another notch to add to a wall of recipes that includes the Cheeseburger Dumplings, Buffalo Chicken Dumplings, Broccoli Cheddar Dumplings, Apple Brown Sugar Dumplings, and the Hot Dogpling—stuff you don’t normally see in Asian pan-fried dumplings, or potstickers. Quintessential as they might seem in hindsight (my friends and I certainly feel that way after gobbling up panfuls of these pizza dumplings last night), they’re recreations of favorites in the name of dumpling fun. And fun is what’s on the menu … Read More
So maybe you consider yourself an aficionado of Chinese dumplings. Maybe you’re a sucker for hearty, all-American food, too. Maybe you’re just searching for a vegetarian dumpling filling that isn’t a mosaic of brown-green ingredients with an ultimately bland, nondescript taste (mei wei dao! if you speak Mandarin, that is). In actuality, you don’t need to hail from any of these persuasions to enjoy the unexpected delight of these dumplings — because it’s so unexpected yet delicious.
Hold the fries with these: who needs them when you have a crisp on the bottom, chewy on the top homemade noodle encapsulating a juicy nugget of better-than-Grade-A beef, with melted shreds of sharp cheddar and caramelized onions inside? That’s a happy meal for me alone. Alright, and some soy sauce (or ketchup? I can’t decide!) doesn’t hurt for dipping.
Little dumpling, who made thee? I know who did, originally. This dumpling was featured on the menu of the notorious 20-course, $1,500 a plate dinners propelled by two of the world’s greatest working chefs, Thomas Keller of The French Laundry and Per Se and Grant Achatz of Alinea. Their dinners, billed as mentor-protégé collaborations, unfolded in New York, Chicago and Napa, at the duo’s respective restaurants. But this dumpling, shown above, was just made by little old me. And the … Read More
Chinese New Year is coming up, and as with every holiday save for maybe President’s Day, that means one thing to me: FOOD! Great food. Excesses of food. And the first food that comes to mind for this one is dumplings. But instead of throwing a dumpling party like I did last year, forcing my friends to roll up their sleeves in the wrapping process, the talented food writer Winnie Yang and I are going to teach a class on … Read More
Rats! My friend Karol agreed to come to my impromptu Chinese New Year‘s Eve dinner last night only on the condition that there would be no utterance of the words “rat” or “mouse,” so just getting it out of my system. Ringing in the Year of the Rat is understandably awkward when trodding the sodden confetti and firecracker papered streets of a New Year’s aftermath-stricken Mott St., kicking the occasional half-eaten bun. I’m not sure the ancient Chinese had counted … Read More