Dumplings Around the World

Menu-Dumplings-Around-World

On Christmas day my family feasted on dumplings from around the world. I came up with this idea because I wanted something fun and unusual for 5 adults celebrating Christmas day together. Each course was served 1 to 2 hours apart. I made menu cards for each person (pictured above). My husband came up with the idea of clinking glasses and wishing Merry Christmas in the language from each country. It was a lot of fun especially when he said, “Once more with feeling!”. For all of the people who wonder what vegetarians eat, take a look at this feast.

Note: If I did this again, I will plan beverages for each course. It could be fun to pair drinks from each country with each dumpling.

Gyoza

Gyoza

I made ahead and froze my own version of vegetarian gyoza. It was easy to pan fry them before serving. I used this dipping sauce but did not use the chili and reduced the amount of green onion.

Pierogi

Piergoi

We made Martha Stewart’s cabbage pierogi recipe (not the full recipe). We prepared them the day before and fried in butter before serving. We typically make them around Christmas each year. This year we served them with sour cream, apple sauce, and mustard.

Samosa

Samosa

We used this recipe from Willams-Sonoma. We made mango chutney (1/2 the recipe) and raita to serve with the samosas.

Calzone

Calzone

I made mini calzones with goat cheese and herb filling. We served with store bought fresh marinara sauce.

Apple Dumpling

Apple-Dumpling

We used this recipe for the apples and caramel sauce. We used leftover puffed pastry instead of the dumpling dough to make it easier at the end of a day of cooking and feasting.

Dinner with Edible Bowls

My 15 year old nephew wanted to make a meal with edible bowls. This is the same nephew who when he was young wanted to make a dinosaur shaped bread that stood up. (we made it happen)

Since I am a vegetarian I required that this dinner be vegetarian. My nephew did almost all of the cooking. I mostly just gave some advice and helped clean as he worked.

During the photo shoot I came up with the idea of adding a sage leaf to the soup. I ran out to my herb garden to get a leaf. If I had planned ahead, a sage leaf pan fried in butter would have been great.

The Parmesan cup recipe is here from Food and Wine. My nephew designed the salad: romaine lettuce, mandarin oranges, toasted walnuts, and Wegmans Raspberry Vinaigrette.

The bread bowl recipe is from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe. The soup is a Potato Cheddar Chowder from Vegetarian Times.

Salad in Parmesan cup

We had a lot of trouble with edible bowls for the ice cream. We tried the balloon dipped in chocolate idea. Our balloons stuck to the chocolate. There was no way to separate them. So we gave up on the chocolate bowl and tried a cookie bowl. Nephew found a chocolate chip cookie bowl recipe and directions from Michael Ruhlman. We also struggled with this. We tried a few times without success. The cookie tasted amazing but we could not release the bottom of the cup in one beautiful piece. Our ice cream was served in the cookie rings. Not exactly a bowl but it looked cute and tasted great.

Black Raspberry ice cream topped with whipped cream served in a cookie ring

This was an ambitious meal but a great activity for a teen nephew and Aunt.

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