Once every couple of months we have friends over for a tradition we call Thai Food Friday. Thai Food Friday has kind of taken on a life of its own and is now more like a supper club. Originally it started with our friend Joey who is a missionary in Papua New Guinea. He taught me how to make my first curry dish and we always seemed to get together on Fridays, so Thai Food Friday was born! I actually still have his original recipe written on a church Offertory envelope in my cookbook. ha! We all love Thai food but plan on branching out next month and doing an Indian food night. I can’t wait to see what we come up with!

Here was our menu for the party:

Appetizer: Shrimp and Scallion Dumplings
Soup: Tom Yum with shrimp and straw mushrooms
Entrée: Red Curry Chicken over Jasmine Rice
Dessert: Chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter chocolate chip cookie dough and toasted marshmallow icing. (not even remotely Thai…but it didn’t really matter, they were amazing and that is that!)

These shrimp and scallion dumplings were absolutely awesome. Kevin made a quick dipping sauce of soy sauce, sesame oil, honey and sweet chili sauce. You don’t even need the sauce with the dumplings, but I always like something to dip mine in. My sister prepared the filling ahead of time and we assembled the dumplings once she got to our house. Once we got an assembly line going it took only minutes to make them all.

Try these dumplings out the next time you want a different appetizer for a party!

Shrimp and Scallion Dumplings

Ingredients

3/4 pound peeled and deveined shrimp, finely chopped
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic
3/4 tablespoons minced peeled ginger
1 1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
3 scallions, finely chopped
About 36 dumpling or wonton wrappers

Preparation

Stir together all ingredients, except wrappers, and 1/4 teaspoon salt.

Put a rounded teaspoon filling in center of a wrapper. Lightly brush edge of wrapper with water, then fold in half (diagonally if square) and press to seal. Form a tortellini shape by moistening 1 corner and bringing 2 corners together, pressing them. Form remaining dumplings.

Cook dumplings in 2 batches in a medium pot of gently simmering water until filling is just cooked, about 3 minutes per batch. Transfer with a slotted spoon to a platter. We steamed ours, using a steamer basket, but we’ve also made them in simmering water before too. Whatever works best for you! Keep warm, covered.