Yomari! The Literally Heart-Shaped Dumpling You've Never Tried

I found a shape of dumpling I've never eaten, and I'm ecstatic. I went to a Nepalese restaurant last night and ordered yomari, dumplings typically filled with molasses and eaten on holidays. They stand in for various gods depending on what they're stuffed with. These were closer to momo with a spiced ground lamb filling, but in a heart or root vegetable shape rather than soup dumpling shape. Am I obsessing over dumplings? Isn't a dumpling I've never tried before in a shape I've never observed cause for a good day?

Translated as "tasty bread," eating yomari symbolizes the rice harvest, which occurs in about a month. But I kind of want to make them for Thanksgiving, and throw everyone for a loop. Hey, my instructions were "bring an appetizer." My family knows what I do for a living. They'll understand.

Now, to experiment with innards:

The more I think about it, the more I see a sea of familiar faces disappointed I didn't bring mini-quiches or like...I don't know, whatever else they think I make during our hard-working test kitchen days. They poke sadly at these oddly-shaped foreign lumps of rice dough, skeptical that the filling might contain — gasp — cumin, instead of — gag — pumpkin and just like that, I'm breaking out the safety net and going with artichokes with baked brie sauce. But every day until then, I'm going back to the Nepalese place for yomari.

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