A Very Asian Cookalong to celebrate National Dumpling Day
Mark your calendars! National Dumpling Day is September 26, and since dumplings have a very special place in our hearts, you know we’ll be low-key celebrating!
For those who may be new around here, we became a foundation in January 2022 when I was anchoring the news on New Year’s Day and talked about what Americans eat for the holiday. I mentioned I had dumpling soup because “that’s what a lot of Korean people do.” Technically, it’s rice cake soup, but I said dumplings because that’s my favorite addition to the soup. Anyway — a woman called to complain I was being “very Asian” and I “needed to keep my Korean to myself.” Her voicemail went viral, it sparked a global moment of unity as people used the hashtag #VeryAsian to show their solidarity and celebrations, I went on The Ellen Show, Ellen gave me a big check, and I used the money to start a foundation. Sums it up!
Image via The Ellen Show
We went viral on January 1, I flew out to see Ellen on January 9, and we got the paperwork approved to operate as a non-profit by January 19 when the Ellen Show episode aired. We’ve been going about 1000 miles an hour since. It’s all here.
Since then we’ve been convening Very Asian events and raising money for AANHPI groups like the Asian American Journalists Association. We also launched The May Book Project, which is an Asian American youth literature project for all readers to build and maintain robust and diverse collections!
I also wrote a children’s book called A Very Asian Guide to Korean Food (which will release in October) — partly because I wanted a book like this to read to my son! I find that as a mom it’s been hard to find books that I think represent us, though there are lots of cool materials out there. I feel like this is a modern, fresh, inclusive book for all readers thanks to the illustrations of Sunnu Rebecca Choi and publisher Karen Chan.
And so… because dumplings are such a part of our story, we wanted to celebrate with doing a casual cookalong.
Lucky for us, we are going to have a fun event with St. Louis’ Tiny Chef Melanie Meyer. Melanie’s story is so compelling to me — she is a Korean adoptee who owns a pop-up restaurant in the city. She was recently featured in The New York Times in a food identity story, and she shared her Korean carbonara recipe! Melanie’s journey back to Korea and her reunion with her birth family is chronicled on her social platforms along with her journey to learn Korean and discover culture through food.
Neeta Satam for The New York Times
David Malosh for The New York Times, Food Stylist: Simon Andrews
We will be cooking together for National Dumpling Day! Melanie is coming over to make the tteok from tteokbokki, and I will be making a staple mandu recipe that I’ve also included in my new book. We’re going to attempt to go live on Instagram on Sept 26 at 1 p.m. central. It’s just a free, fun event to share the love of great conversation and good food!
If you’d like to join us, just watch out for the live notification on our social pages — @michellelitv and @tinychefstl. We will definitely try to livestream and then save the video for later… let’s hope technology works for us. Until then some of you want the mandu recipe so you can cook along! Oh and I’ll give away some merch!
mandu INGREDIENTS:
2 cups of lean ground beef (tofu can substitute)
1 cup ground pork
1 small zucchini
1 egg
1/2 onion
2 cloves of garlic (minced)
Tbsp. sesame oil
1 pkg wonton wrappers
salt and pepper to taste
a few pieces of kimchi (Korean pickled cabbage) optional
vegetable oil for frying
soy sauce, sesame oil, gochurgaru, rice vinegar, scallions for sauce
INSTRUCTIONS:
Empty the proteins, egg, onion, and garlic into a large mixing bowl.
Cut the small zucchini into tiny miniature-size cubes (about the size of a pencil eraser).
Next, place the cubes on a paper towel so that the water from the zucchini can drain. You may even try squeezing the water out. When the zucchini is fairly dry, add it with the rest of the ingredients.
Sprinkle the sesame oil, salt, and pepper to taste. If you add kimchi only add a few pieces for added flavor. Mix well.
To make potstickers, place a wonton on a potsticker mold, doughy side down. Brush a little water or egg on the wrapper.
Fill the mold with a teaspoon of mixed ingredients.
Now you are ready to fry or steam!
In a small dipping bowl, mix about five splashes of soy sauce to every one drop of sesame oil (fill the bowl until you are satisfied), add a splash of rice vinegar and a pinch of gochugaru (hot Korean pepper flakes). Sprinkle with green onions.