christopher tan Archives - Asian Dumpling Tips

Sending Dumplings in the Mail

Asian Dumplings Cookbook, Cooking Tips & Tricks

I came home yesterday and found an oddly shaped package stuffed into my mailbox. The postage indicated that it came from Singapore, and on the back the sender revealed himself: Christopher Tan, an Asian food expert, author, and writer whom I luckily call a dear friend. Ha! We are in the Lunar New Year season and I upon tearing open the package, I found exactly what I suspected, a box of pineapple kuih tart, a dumpling/cookie that’s a must-have for Chinese New Year celebrations in Singapore. The tarts are fashioned to look like small tangerines, a traditional good luck symbol. The whole clove stuck on top underscores the tangerine effect.

I first tasted the spiced pineapple jam filled treats in New York City at Saveur magazine headquarters, when I was visiting with Editor-in-Chief James Oseland. We were discussing the Asian Dumplings recipe collection and James said, “Here try these.” He opened up a large tin of kuih tart that Chris has sent him. They were heavenly and I unknowingly ate the whole clove decoration and received an extra spicy high. When I returned to California, I emailed Chris about them and he pointed me in the right direction for developing a recipe (see the Sweets chapter, page 195 for the spiced pineapple-filled dumplings recipe). That was in fall of 2007. The book was released in last August. Getting a box of the dumplings from Chris makes me feel like I’ve come full circle, though there is still more to explore in the world of Asian dumplings.

Tips for Mailing Dumplings
If you’re thinking of mailing dumplings, they should be relatively sturdy cooked ones. These little gems travel well, so long as you pack them tightly like Chris did, each one in a little paper cup. There was a layer of parchment between the layers. This year, Chris changed his dough recipe and made it flakier than mine, so the dumplings crumbled a tad during the arduous trip via air mail. They nevertheless tasted great. Every time I eat one, there’s a huge grin on my face.

Which dumplings mail well? If I were to mail dumplings, I’d go for the kuih tart or one of sticky rice dumplings wrapped in banana or lotus leaf. Individually wrap and then freeze the leaf-wrapped dumplings so that they stay fresh, then mail them in the shortest time possible. In the U.S. the all-you-can-stuff priority mail flat rate boxes ($4.95 or $10.70) are fabulous deals. Whatever dumpling you send, the recipient will feel like he/she is the luckiest person on Earth!

How to Put a Crisp Skirt on Pot Stickers

All Recipes, Asian Dumplings Cookbook, Chinese Dumpling Recipes, Chinese recipes, Cooking Tips & Tricks, Dumpling Restaurants, Japanese Dumpling Recipes

It’s hard to believe that it just over a week ago that I came back from Australia obsessed with figuring out how to replicate a particular style of pot stickers that I enjoyed at Hutong dumpling restaurant in Melbourne. As I noted, Hutong’s pot stickers were united on their plate by what could only be described as a crisp skirt. I asked for help to answer this question — How to produce that little skirt at home? A number of people came to my immediate rescue.

Robyn Laing from New Zealand translated a gyoza recipe from Gyoza no Daigasshou (Gyoza Grand Chorus) cookbook, scanned in the pages from the book, then sent the pdfs to me. I’d asked about the origin of the skirt and Robyn noted that the skirt recipe in the cookbook came from Chef Yagi:

Chef Yagi was born in China where his parents ran a restaurant. He stayed in China after the war but returned to Japan in 1979. To learn Japanese he invited friends over and made gyoza for them the way he’d had them in China. He went to cooking school and worked in a number of Chinese restaurants to learn the trade. This led to him starting a small restaurant and gradually expanded his business. It suggests that he came up with the idea of the skirt as a way differentiating his gyoza. So no way of telling whether this was an idea he adapted from China or from Japan.