I made these dumplings at the same time I made the pork and Napa cabbage ones. I do not recommend making more than one type of dumpling at a time, on your own. Very typical of me, I doubled each recipe and ended up making 128 dumplings for 4 adults. Yes, I do over-cater and it's a bad habit, I know, but I do not enjoy the look of friends hankering for more food at the end of a meal...although it is only slightly worse than friends who beg for mercy and ask you to stop when you bring out the dessert course. 

Let's get back to the dumplings. These were unusual in the sense that the flavours were quite bold and intense...and I loved them so. Andrea recommends a spicy roasted tomato sauce as an accompaniment to these dumplings but instead I used what I already had, a kasoundi sauce that is very similar in flavour to Andrea's.

Nepalese Spiced Lamb Dumplings (Khasi Momo), recipe adapted from Andrea Nguyen's "Asian Dumplings"

Ingredients:

Lamb mince: 340 grams, coarsely chopped

Yellow onion: 1/3 cup, finely chopped

Spring onions or shallots: 2 large, white and green parts, finely chopped

Fresh coriander: 1/3 cup, finely chopped

Medium-hot chilli: 1 large, finely chopped

Fresh ginger: 1.5 teaspoons, finely minced

Garlic: 1 clove, minced and crushed into a paste

Ground coriander: 1/2 teaspoon

Ground cumin: 1/2 teaspoon

Good quality curry powder: 1 1/4 teaspoons

Sichuan peppercorns: 1/4 teaspoon, toasted in a skillet for 2 minutes until fragrant, then crushed with a mortar and pestle

Salt: 1 generous teaspoon

Vegetable oil: 2 tablespoons

Water: 6 tablespoons

1 recipe Basic Dumpling Dough (for recipe, see under "Pork and Napa Cabbage Water Dumplings")

1.5 cups kasoundi

Preparation:

Combine the lamb, onion, spring onions, coriander, chilli, ginger and garlic in a bowl. Use a fork to stir and lightly mash the ingredients together. In a small bowl, stir together the ground coriander, cumin, curry powder, Sichuan peppercorn, salt, oil, and water. Pour these seasonings over the meat mixture, then stir and fold the ingredients together. Once you have broken the large chunks of meat, briskly stir to blend the ingredients into a cohesive, thick mixture. To develop the flavours, cover with plastic wrap and set aside for 30 minutes. You should have about 2 cups. The filling can be made a day ahead, refrigerated and brought back to room temperature before assembling dumplings. 

Make 16 round wrappers from half of the dough, about 8.5 cms or 3-1/4 inches in diameter each. Keep the other half of the dough wrapped in plastic. Use a small wooden rolling pin to roll out wrappers. Place them on a flour dusted large plate and cover with a clean cloth.

Before assembling the dumplings, line a baking sheet with wax paper dusted with plain flour. For each dumpling, hold a wrapper in a slightly cupped hand. Scoop up about 1 scant tablespoon of filling with a teaspoon and position it slightly off-centre toward the upper half of the wrapper, pressing and shaping it into a flat mound and keeping about 1/2 to 3/4 inch of wrapper clear on all sides. That's about 1.5 to 2 cms. Then fold, and press to enclose the filling and create half-moons.

Place the finished dumpling on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with the other wrappers, assembling the dumplings and spacing them a good 1/2 inch apart on the baking sheet. Keeping the finished dumplings covered with a dry kitchen towel, form and fill the wrappers from the remaining dough.

Once all the dumplings are assembled, they can be covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated for several hours and cooked straight from the fridge. You can freeze on the baking sheet until hard, about an hour, and transfer them to a freezer bag and kept frozen for up to a month. Partially thaw before cooking.

To cook the dumplings, half-fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil over high heat. In the meantime, prepare a serving plate for the dumplings by smearing it with a tablespoon or so of vegetable oil. This will stop dumplings from sticking to the serving plate. Add half the dumplings, gently dropping each one into the water. Nudge the dumplings apart with a wooden spoon to keep them from sticking together and/or to the bottom of the pot. Return the water to a simmer and then lower the heat to maintain the simmer and gently cook: a hard boil can make a dumpling burst. Cook the dumplings for about 8 minutes, or until they float to the surface. Add about 1/2 cup of cold tap water to the pot and wait until dumplings resurface. Add another 1/2 cup of cold water and wait for dumplings again. Do this one more time and dumplings will be ready.

Use a slotted spoon to scoop up dumplings allowing excess water to drip back down to the pot before putting on a serving plate. cover the plate with a large inverted bowl to keep dumplings warm.

Return water to a boil and cook remaining dumplings. When done, return first batch to hot water for a minute or two to reheat. There is no need to wait for the water to boil.Serve the hot dumplings immediately, placing the plate in the middle of the table, serve with the kasoundi to which people can help themselves. Beware, there might be hot juice waiting to burst from inside the dumplings. We usually place a dumpling on a chinese porcelain spoon, bite a bit of skin off, let steam off the dumpling, slurp up the juice and then eat the entire dumpling at once...not elegant, I know, but clean and you won't scald your tongue this way.