Sunday, June 6, 2010

Prawn Dumplings.. Yumcha?

Mum said her favourite yumcha food is the prawn dumplings. Have worked during yumcha service when I was like, 20 something? and saw Chefs churning out dumplings of all sorts fairly quickly, and it never clicked me much that I should make it some day until 15 years later.... I wish I had pay more attention when I was young and ignorant.... as prawn dumplings were not easy.... well, sort of...
I've made a lot of dumplings, but to get the clear skin right... is a different ball game.

But first of all, the fillings.
100g pork mince
150g peeled fresh green prawns.
1 knob of garlic
3 white roots of spring onions
1 pinch of salt...

I used the mortar and pestle today to pund the mince, the meat, prawn, herbs... well, I only used half of the prawn in the mince, the other half, cut in small cubes and gently marinate with salt.
and then the skin. I did make too much, so I put more than half away. so I'm giving out the list as how much I should use for the fillings:
200g tang flour (glutenless wheat flour - from Asian grocery shops)
35g tapioca flour
1tbsp of lard
Use boiling hot water to pour into the flour mix and stir well. Pour in as much water as you need to make flour wet, it takes a fair bit of water. Massage in lard and form a dough, knead till it's smooth and no lumps. set in cling film for 30 minutes.
I have to get used to this type of dumpling skin - it's not like the normal dumpling skin made out of plain flour - it has got no glueten and not stretchy... anyway, add in the mince and some cut prawn chunks in a flattened dumpling skin, and they are not too hard to make, well, I have made them rather big.... Guess I'm not selling them in restaurant, no one will tell me off for over sized dumplings...
I lined the steamer (call me lazy, I used the rice cooker steamer rather than the bamboo one) with baking paper and they are quite nice after being steamed for 6 minutes in high heat....

1 comment:

  1. OMG you really made these from scratch?? You are awesome! I think these dumplings are the most difficult one to make, just because of the skin. It seems like you’ve master it quite well. Big thumbs up!

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