I received an e-mail from an online friend of mine, Traca Savadogo a.k.a. Seattle Tall Poppy. She asked me if I was free to attend a private party featuring Andrea Nguyen, writer of Asian Dumplings (above) and multiple award winning cookbook “Into the Vietnamese Kitchen”.

I didn’t hesitate, I said yes and made a mad scramble to Square One Books in West Seattle to see if they could order the Asian Dumplings book (I wanted a clean signed copy!).  Square one hooked it up without any problems and later that day I was ready to meet the master!

Hold on….not so fast…..there was a little pre-funk action before Andrea showed up.  Quynh from nha22.com made some food from Andrea’s “Into the Vietnamese Kitchen” book and it was flawless.

Take some of these little seafood cups (they pop and crackle when they are moist…coolest thing ever)

Add some amazing seafood action or have a short rib or twelve

Put it all together and now you start to see why I raced over as fast as I could to meet Andrea.

Quynh also did all of the food shopping for the night and she gave us all great information on where to buy ingredients to pull off Andrea’s food (more on that later).

Eating a bunch of great food and then Traca arrives with these little amazing appetizer/drinks/pieces of perfection. Sake Jello Shots over Cucumber with Candied Ginger

Traca asked me to put the ginger on top and I employed my mom’s theory on food, “uno para ti, uno para mi (one for you and one for me)”.  They were great but I knew they were pretty strong and I didn’t want to drool on Andrea so I ate a couple then moved on.

Andrea is amazing and super nice. I introduced myself while keeping calm….actually I was n 300MPH mode and was incredibly excited to meet her….hopefully I didn’t scare her (big fan over here!).

She got down to business and started showing us how to make dumplings. I have never made dumplings because I always found them to be intimidating. After reading Andrea’s new book and getting a personal demonstration I know I’ll be making these in my sleep! She gave us a few tips which I will include towards the end of the post for you.  I think the one thing that I took away from the evening is that it’s all about repetition. Hmmmm, I’ve heard that a thousand times since entering the culinary world.  Andrea talked about making hundreds of dumplings all over the world and she was still excited to make them; it was great to see that.

Here is a quick video and some tips on making her favorite shape………in HD!!

Andrea Nguyen

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Here are a few pictures of the finished products.

It’s pretty amazing to see what can be done when someone has truly mastered their craft.  Andrea is amazing.  I would like to thank her as well as Traca and Kathy for hosting this event. I would also like to thank all the other people there that I had the pleasure of meeting.

Tips from Andrea:

“When making a filling you want it to stick together so when it cooks it doesn’t break the wrapping”.  She suggests adding a touch of cornstarch in order to help bind the ingredients.

She recommends Hong Kong style wraps and thin wonton wraps. In her book she offers recipes to make your own, that is always the best route.

Use a chopstick to fill the wontons, this will make it easier when you are doing larger volumes.

Here are a few places in the Seattle area where you can buy supplies to make your own Asian Dumplings:

Square One Books
Viet Wah
Rose Brand
99 Ranch

Eric