We’ll start our party prep by making some fillings. I love the traditional pork and chive but we'll also do a shrimp and chicken. 

What You'll Need For The Party: 

-Your pork filling (recipe follows steps) 

-Your shrimp filling (recipe follows steps) 

-Wonton wrappers 

-Round cookie cutter, optional 

-Bamboo steamers 

-A shallow pan 

-Soy sauce or dipping sauce 

-Scallions for garnishing 

-Chopsticks ( duh ) 

-Booze

Heres The Game Plan

Get ready about a half hour before your guests arrive, or if you're doing this off premise (away from your kitchen) get to your party a little early to set up. You wanna make an assembly line; pork first, wrappers in the middle, small bowl of water to dip your fingers and a baking sheet with some towels on them. 

Spoon about a tablespoon of pork onto a square wonton wrapper. 

Dip your finger in the water and brush the outer edge of the wrapper. 

Take two opposing sides and bring them up to meet in the middle; pinching them together. 

Then take one of the other sides of the wonton wrapper and bring it to the top, crimping and sealing both sides of the "pyramid". 

Finally, do the same to the other side making sure your dumplings are sealed as much as possible with little to no air inside. 

Very similar steps are used for the shrimp dumplings. The only difference is I cut them with a round cutter to make half moons. This way we can tell the difference between the two after they're steamed.

Next you want to get a shallow pan of water going to just a simmer, place your steamers on top and let them pre-heat. 

Once your water is simmering to boiling and you have a nice steam going on, you can add your dumplings. I like to lightly spray the bottom of the steamers with Pam cooking spray or line them with round parchment. Be sure not to over crowd them or let them touch so the steam and heat can distribute evenly. 

After about 3-4 minutes (or when the meat is completely pink with clear juices coming out) you can take them out and plate them on a tray. I like to serve them with some house made dipping sauce which I will teach you how to make shortly.

Pork Filling 

1 lb. ground pork 

1 T freshly grated ginger 

1 T freshly grated garlic 

1 egg 

2 t soy sauce 

1⁄2 t kosher salt 

1⁄2 cup minced chives (or scallions) 

2 t canola oil 

Heat the canola oil up in a nonstick pan over medium high heat. Add you aromatics, ginger and garlic, and let cook for about 60-90 seconds, keeping it moving in the pan. We just wanna take the "raw" off them, we don't want to do any major cooking, set aside and let cool. Next throw all of your other ingredients into a bowl and thoroughly mix. The egg is going to act as a binder while everything steams because there’s going to be a lot of moisture. I like to make this ahead of time to let the flavors really marinate.

Shrimp Filling 

1 pound large shrimp–shelled, deveined and diced 

1/2 pound ground chicken, white meat

1 T minced lemongrass 

1 T minced garlic 

2 t lemon zest 

1 t cornstarch 

1 t sugar 

1¼ salt 

Heat the canola oil up in a nonstick pan over medium high heat. Add your aromatics, ginger and garlic, and let cook for about 60-90 seconds, keeping it moving in the pan just how we did for the pork. Next throw all of your shrimp into a food processor, in two stages if it’s a small one, and chop up the shrimp. Transfer to a bowl and add the rest of your ingredients. In this instance, the cornstarch and chicken will be acting as your binder. *This is not a weird combo, I promise you. The Chicken is there for a certain texture and it really just works. The shrimp flavor over powers the chicken so it doesn't really come through but overall it almost tastes like a seafood chicken nugget...an asian seafood chicken nugget.

Dipping Sauce 

1/2 c soy sauce 

1/2 c rice wine vinegar 

1 T minced garlic 

1 T chile oil 

2 T toasted sesame seed oil 

2 T minced chives 

Dipping sauces should be simple so don't overthink it. Whisk all of your ingredients together finishing with some fresh chives or scallions! 

If you’ve prepped everything ahead of time, all you have to worry about is filling, folding, steaming and enjoying your dumplings! To me this is a very warming experience. Being surrounded by friends who really feel like family, all together helping out in the kitchen cooking together and hopefully cleaning too. Having a party like this doesn't take you away from the action and keep you slaving away by yourself. Ask for help, teach people; everyone gets there hands dirty in my kitchen. You cook together you eat together, thats what family is all about. 

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