Pom Moongauklang is the owner of one of the city’s most frequented and beloved sandwich shops, keeper of what Real Radio 104.1’s Jim Colbert recently called “the O.G. Thanksgiving sandwich,” the Mama Ling Ling.
It’s a handheld that is exactly what it promises to be, a Thanksgiving plate — turkey, stuffing, cranberry, more — pressed into a sandwich you can hold in your hand and served with a side of gravy for dunking.
“And it’s 100% my mother,” she notes.
But there’s a new holiday contender on the menu these days, a dish some might call the Ling Ling 2.0. A comforting, spoonable stew that Moongauklang calls Mama Ling’s Ugly Dumpling Soup.
“And that,” she says, “is 100 percent me.”
The sandwich, which has been on the menu since Pom Pom’s Teahouse & Sandwicheria (67 N. Bumby Ave. in Orlando) opened in 2005, was inspired by Moongauklang’s mom and the first American dinner she mastered after emigrating from Thailand.
“We ate it at least once a month growing up,” Pom once told me with a chuckle. “My mom had a lot of pride in it.”
The soup is something different, a rich holiday gumbo of sorts, one that takes almost all the sandwich elements and morphs it into something hearty — and straight from her own kitchen.
Now, you can make it in yours.
“I’ve been eating this personally forever,” she says of the stew, which she introduced at the shop last winter amid the pandemic. “I’d been on a soup kick, as it was a big seller at the time, and I was running out of ideas. I really wanted to do something different, so I just brought it from my heart, my home, to work.”
It was a runaway hit that unlike the sandwich, which is available year-round, only shows up when temps dip below 60 degrees.
“It’s totally dependent on the weather,” she says.
For Moongauklang, making it from scratch is a two- or three-day effort, “but if you’ve already made the Thanksgiving dinner and you’re using leftovers, it’s much faster and just as delicious!”
With your leftover turkey ready to go, all it requires is a bit of boiling — making stock from your bird’s bones. With the addition of a few vegetables and as many leftovers as you feel like using, Moongauklang says you’ll have an incredibly comforting dish that lets the holidays linger.
“Even the process of making it is comforting,” she says.
The basic recipe is below and calls for the stock to simmer just about the entire way, reducing into something rich, flavored with your turkey and all the seasonings with which you’ve made it.
“And there’s no wrong way to do it,” she notes. “You’ll use your leftover stuffing for the dumplings, but if you have leftover green bean casserole, you can add it. If you have leftover mashed potatoes, you can add them. Either will just give the soup more body. You can play.”
Tired of turkey? No worries. The stew freezes beautifully, she says, “so you can just grab a bag of egg noodles when you’re ready and bring it out when the Thanksgiving cravings come back.”
Find me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram @amydroo or on the OSFoodie Instagram account @orlando.foodie or email me at amthompson@orlandosentinel.com, and your question could be answered in my weekly Ask Amy Drew column. For more foodie fun, join the Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook group.
Mama Ling’s Ugly Dumpling Soup
Ingredients for broth
1 cup celery, diced
1 cup carrot, diced
1 onion (yellow or white), diced
3 medium-sized potatoes, diced
1 cup corn (cut from cob, canned or frozen)
1/2 pound leftover turkey meat, pulled and/or chopped
1/2 tablespoon ground pepper
2 teaspoons salt
Fresh parsley, 1/3 bunch, chopped
4 quarts water
Bones from your Thanksgiving turkey
Ingredients for Dumplings
2 eggs, beaten
2 teaspoons Poultry Seasoning
3 cups leftover stuffing
Cornstarch
1/2 cup hot water
2 teaspoons onion powder
Instructions
Place water in 8-quart pot. Bring to boil. Add turkey bones. Reduce heat slightly and simmer for one hour.
Strain bones, return broth to pot, bring back to simmer. It will continue to reduce and concentrate.
Combine eggs, stuffing, Poultry Seasoning and onion powder. Add water a little at a time until desired consistency reached. Should be firm, not overly wet (think uncooked meatball mixture).
Form into irregular oval shapes, roughly tablespoon-sized, dust lightly with corn starch on both sides.
Drop dumplings into simmering broth for 2 minutes. Remove with slotted spoon. Set aside.
Add onion, carrots, celery, potatoes, salt and pepper to simmering broth. Cook 30 minutes or until potatoes/carrots are fork tender. While this cooks, make egg noodles and set aside.
Add turkey, corn, chopped parsley.
Place 2-3 dumplings and handful cooked noodles in soup bowl.
Add one ladle full of soup.
Garnish with tablespoon of warmed, leftover gravy and a bit of chopped parsley. Makes six servings.
