DIY Dumplings? Desire Dim Sum? Get Andrea Nguyen's book "Asian Dumplings"

Tricia and I are passionate Dim Sum-o wrestlers.  Living in Los Angeles, we are fortunate to have many good Dim Sum restaurants near us in Chinatown, Alhambra, and Gardenia.  However, we had been wondering lately -- how difficult would it be to make our own char shiu bao (steamed pork buns)?  Or har gow (steamed shrimp dumplings)?  After doing some research, all we knew was that it supposedly took years (nay, a lifetime) of professional training in the kitchens and/or culinary schools of Hong Kong to be good enough to be worthy of making these morsels.  Our dreams of DIY Dim Sum seemed hopelessly farfetched.

Then one day, while driving and listening to KCRW's Good Food podcast, I found out about Andrea Nguyen's new book entitled Asian Dumplings: Mastering Gyoza, Spring Rolls, Samosas and More.  It was as if a steamed dough crescent rainbow had formed over the 405!  Our soy sauce, chili and mustard prayers were answered!  

The book goes into a lot of detail and offers short cuts for making your own doughs.  If illustrations aren't enough for you, she's got instructional videos on the book's companion site asiandumplingtips.com.  Indian, Thai, Japanese, South American, Vietnamese and Fillipino dumpling lovers are not left out -- they too get recipes and techniques.  Seriously, if you want to make any sort of dumpling-esque food item, this book is for you.

So now we are building up our equipment list, taking the advice of Mrs. Nguyen and getting a tortilla press (!), and a wooden dowel to make into small, cheap rolling pins.  We're still tracking down some of the more exotic ingredients, like Shaoxing rice wine.  But hopefully soon I'll have photos up of our creations.