There is, perhaps, no party food more fun than meat-on-a-stick, and satay among its most elegant kampyo adaptable incarnations. This broad snackable category includes Japanese gyoza, Taiwanese shui jiao, Indian samosas, and Thai pun sip. From Vietnamese riblets simmered in caramel to vegetarian samosas from India,, our roundup of easy Asian appetizer recipes offers sweeping inspiration. Toss cashews and peanuts in caramelized sugar, fish sauce, garlic, and chile for a powerful, can’t-stop-eating bar snack.
Add the lime, shallot, and basil right before serving so the nuts stay crispy. Korean kimbap is similar to Japanese sushi, but typically uses cooked or pickled ingredients. Lard adds tenderness, richness, and a subtle porky finish. Get seasonal recipes, methods and techniques sent right to your inbox—sign up here to receive Saveur newsletters. The Uyghurs of the western regions of China refer to these flatbread as nang, which have existed for centuries as a staple at every meal. Punctured with a nail-studded tool, they’re scattered with any variety of seeds and spices and vary in diameter from a few inches across to a foot or more.
Though they’re usually cooked in tandoors, an oven with a pizza stone will do. There are two different styles of onigiri: those that are stuffed and those that have seasonings mixed in. The staple meats of Western China, lamb and mutton can be found folded into everything from pilafs to buns to noodles. Of course, they’re also the focal point of the region’s iconic kebabs. Xinjiang from Persia, the kebabs get an extra kick from minced garlic cloves and ground chile powder. Best known in their deep-fried iteration, lumpia often crackle beneath the teeth. Connoisseurs pine for a version made with shrimp, pork, and shredded coconut palm.
The freshly fried version is a marvel, the wrapper crisp, the filling’s texture delicate and yielding. For making spring rolls, most Vietnamese-American home cooks use the spongy, wheat-based wrappers called TYJ Spring Roll Pastry, which are made by the Spring Home company. They’re available frozen at most Asian food stores. These are chicken wings, Filipino-style, marinated in rice vinegar, soy sauce, bay leaves, and garlic.
Serve them with a creamy ginger-enriched dipping sauce and chile-dusted apple slices for a full bar snack. Named for a park in Central Valley, California—a popular meeting place for the large Cambodian community there—these kebabs are slathered in an aromatic and pungent paste of lemongrass, kaffir lime, and fish sauce before meeting the heat of a charcoal grill. Korean rice cakes, known as songpyeon, are half moon-shaped dumplings that are stuffed with fillings like sweet potatoes, chestnuts, red beans, or nuts, and then steamed and served with honey. Homemade dumplings take some work, but they’re worth the effort for a rich pork filling livened up with funky kimchi. This recipe, which came from noted chef Nobu Matsuhisa, is typical of the cross-cultural innovations that made him such a success. Sansho, the Japanese equivalent of Sichuan pepper, adds kick to these sake-and-mirin-marinated wings.