A dumpling bible

Author and chef Helen You uses a starch slurry to give pan-friend dumplings a crunchy, browned bottom. Her new cook book ($19.95) includes dozens of tips and lots of recipes. ED ANDERSON/CLARKSON POTTER PUBLISHERS

Dumplings are so popular－even far beyond China－that they seem nearly incapable of surprise. At least until you enter One Hundred Kinds of Dumpling Garden, as Helen You's New York restaurant is known in Chinese.

Can there be 100 kinds of dumplings? Indeed, as flipping through her new cook book or her Dumpling Galaxy menu quickly reveals. There are the classics You grew up with, then meat-free "green" dumplings, recipes with "faraway flavors" like spicy beef dumplings "that pair well with a cold beer", and dessert dumplings.

In fact, You insists there are many more.

"Dumplings are made to be customized," says the woman who invented succulent pouches of lamb with summer squash and others with muscular dried octopus. "This book will give you all the confidence you need to explore your own dumpling galaxy."

She's so confident in her confidence-building, in fact, that the first recipe she offers in the book is a doozy: pork soup dumplings (xiao long bao). I've taken a few dumpling classes myself, usually at Laowai 101 events around Chinese New Year. The tidbits I create are generally misshapen to the point of comic (though they usually taste OK), and making little dough purses literally full of hot steamy broth has always seemed like the forgotten verse of The Impossible Dream.

Her matter-of-fact presentation of the process, however, convinces me I can do this.

It's not that You takes the task lightly: Half the recipe is cautionary tale, from what can go wrong in the cooking to what can go wrong in the eating.