Jet Tila's Favorite Vegetarian Dumpling Is A Thai Classic

There is an essentially endless variety of dumplings from around the world, all using the most varied and fascinating ingredients (for both the fillings and the wrappers) and taking advantage of a dizzying array of cooking styles. From frozen potstickers you can carelessly toss in a skillet to Xiao long bao, royalty of the sometimes-hard-to-navigate Dim Sum, there's a recipe for everyone.

For Jet Tila, host of the Food Network show "Ready Jet Cook" and known for his frequent Food Network appearances on shows such as Cutthroat Kitchen, Iron Chef America, and Guy's Grocery Games, there's one vegetarian dumpling close to his stomach that he exclusively told us all about at the Food Network New York City Wine & Food Festival.

In his own words, "The Thai make something we call Gui Chai, which is pure garlic chive, in a hot water dough, but it's fried crispy on the outside and then it's steamed." These dumplings come with a warning though: "You can't go on a date with your wife after because your breath is gone, but it's...delicious. Even my amazing wife is like bro, that's pretty intense. Garlic chive is pretty hard core."

Gui Chai, which means garlic chives, is a dish made almost entirely of, well, garlic chives. Unlike regular chives, which have a mild onion flavor, garlic chives, as the name suggests, are garlic-heavy in flavor. The flavor is strong enough, as Jet Tila warned, that you can even use them as a substitute for actual garlic. It's also strong enough that most recipes don't add much to the chives outside of some salt and a dash of sugar to balance out some of the bitterness. Baking soda can also be thrown in to protect the vibrant green color of the herbs.

The hard part of the dish, then, is forming the dumplings. Once again, ingredients are limited in the dough. Just some hot water as Jet says, and flour such as rice and/or tapioca, plus maybe a bit of oil. Dumplings are notoriously difficult to form, with many mistakes to make in the learning process, so don't feel bad if it takes you several rounds to get it right. Once they're formed, you can fry or steam them (or both, following Jet's recommendation). Conversely, you can say "To hell with making dumplings," and mix the filling and dough together, then cut the mixture into pieces to be pan- or deep-fried. Either way, you're on your way to the best veggie dumplings you can get your hands on.