Feed Your People: Celebrating the Asian Table

We are lucky to be based in San Francisco, where a deep range of Asian restaurants serve up authentic dishes. We’re grateful for the diverse culinary community, and for the generosity of all the chef-authors we’re fortunate to work with. This May, as we celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we’d like to take the opportunity to honor our Asian American authors.

Over the years, we’ve worked on a number of books celebrating the Asian table—Simply Ramen, Simply Hot Pots, and Mochi Magic—and we had the honor of including so many amazing chefs in Feed Your People. We look forward to collaborating with many more incredible people. Nothing makes us happier than bringing people together through food; on that note, here are six of our favorite Asian dishes to gather around.

Chinese Dumplings

Dumplings play a key role in many Asian celebrations, particularly Lunar New Year. (The delicious, bite-sized treats are especially beloved because they’re seen as an omen of prosperity due to their crescent shape, which resembles ancient Chinese money.) As Lunar New Year approaches, families will gather to prepare the dumplings—teaming up to make the fillings, scoop those fillings into the dumpling wrappers, and carefully seal and crimp the dumplings’ edges before steaming or frying them. Finally, everyone will get together to enjoy the (delicious) fruits of their labors. Cookbook author Andrea Nguyen wrote the book on dumplings, literally—Asian Dumplings—and she’s been teaching sell-out classes on dumpling-making for years. Peep her recipe for Chinese dumplings, then throw a dumpling party of your own!

Nepalese Momos

Nepalese momos—bite-sized dumplings with beautifully crimped tops and often filled with spiced meat, marries culinary influences from China and India. Sink your teeth into a momo, and you’ll taste the Chinese influence in the tender, toothsome wrapper—and taste the flavors of India in the fillings and dipping sauces (often rich with coriander, cumin, and black cardamom). As with dumplings, many hands make light work of a batch of momos. Binita Pradhan grew up in Kathmandu, Nepal, and when she moved to San Francisco, the executive chef brought the Nepalese specialty with her, opening the beloved eatery Bini’s Kitchen. Gather your dear ones to make her version of the momo, stuffed with spiced ground turkey.

Onigiri Party

Small, portable, and ubiquitous in the bento boxes Japanese children take to school, onigiri are delicious rice balls that endlessly variable, open to nearly as many flavor and design combinations as you can dream up. You might mold your onigiri into a traditional shape, such as a triangle, cylinder, or flattened ball, or into a fun form like a flower. Stuff your onigiri with a bit of filling, such as pickled vegetables, salt-cured salmon, or flaked tuna, and festoon it with nori or sesame seeds, almonds or orange zest, dried fruits or fresh flowers. Sonoko Sakai, author of Rice Craft, and host an onigiri party, where parents and kids alike can let their creativity shine.

Mom’s Guju Chili

Walk into an Indian grocery store, and you’ll be greeted by a whole rainbow of different kinds of dal. Green, pea-like moong dal, bright-orange massour dal, lemon-yellow toor dal…the list goes on (as do the shelves). Dal—or dried legumes—plays a starring role in Indian cooking, showing up in soups, rice dishes, and even as a standalone snack. When Preeti Mistry was growing up in the Midwest, their mother would make moong dal—a spicy, fragrant bean-based soup—at least once a week. Years later, after cutting their teeth at high-end London restaurants and opening up two lauded restaurants (Juhu Beach Club and Navi Kitchen), Mistry started serving that very soup they grew up eating, which they dubbed Mom’s Guju Chili, in a nod to their Gujarati Indian heritage. Whip up your own batch, and share that warm bowl of love with those close to you.

Bo ssäm

Bo ssäm—tender pork belly slices wrapped with lettuce and topped with spicy condiments—is comforting and delicious...and synonymous with celebration. Traditionally, in Korea, families and communities feast on bo ssäm each winter, right after finishing gimjang, the long, arduous process of making that season’s supply of kimchi. At the end of gimjang, once the last pot of kimchi is packed away and left to ferment, everyone gets together to enjoy bo ssäm. The good news is, no matter what you’re celebrating—the end of a project, the beginning of a new year, a birthday, an anniversary, or just an ordinary Thursday night—bo ssäm is a beautiful dish to gather around. Dennis Lee, co-owner and chef of San Francisco’s late, great Namu Gaji, grew up eating his mother’s iteration of the dish on special occasions. Treat your people to his version of the Korean comfort food, which includes pickled daikon, spicy homemade ssämjang sauce, chiles, kimchi, and lettuce. Then, let each guest customize their bites as they wish.

Mochi

Think of mochi as a sort of choose-your-own adventure food: endlessly variable, and as simple or complex as you want to make it. In essence, mochi is a sticky rice cake, made from Japanese short-grain rice, called mochigame. Mochi can be prepared in the traditional way—by pounding—but you can also make it by steaming, baking, boiling, pounding, or even microwaving your ingredients. Since mochi itself has a neutral flavor, it can lean savory or sweet depending on how it’s prepared and served. For instance, mochi might be tucked into ozoni soup, dipped in sauce, or even wrapped in bacon. Alternately, mochi can be sweetened or filled with sweet fillings, ranging from red bean paste to fresh fruit, from truffles to ice cream. Kaori Becker’s mother, Yukiko, hails from Fukushima, Japan, so Kaori grew up eating lots of mochi. The duo now teach mochi-making classes at their cooking school, Kaori’s Kitchen, and Kaori shares their tips and tricks in Mochi Magic. Check out our interview with her to learn more about all things mochi, then head to the kitchen armed with her recipe for daifuku mochi filled with strawberries. We guarantee you’ll love making mochi magic of your own!

For more Asian recipe ideas, check out Feed Your People, Simply Ramen, Simply Hot Pots, and Mochi Magic.