Dim sum feast at home: From Har gow to Shomai

6:26 AM

A week after I came back from KL for raya holidays, the family went on a dim sum craze over the weekend, almost everyone went for dim sum buffet! And at my favorite restaurants! Although I do have dumplings from time to time, from the dumpling place near J's house, it's incomparable. I guess when you've been in a new place for a while you sort of tolerate how the food is adjusted to the place (cost and availability wise) and you think it's good. But the fact that I just came back from KL, made me realise how the dumplings here is like 50% flour and %50 percent mixed meat, and they all taste the same.

So I started searching for recipes - to make my own. I tried negotiating with myself that: if I cant have Toh Yuen's dim sum, I would at least have something that taste better. To encourage myself, while I was doing my weekly grocery shopping at my favorite asian supermarket: Laguna , I bought the wonton and gyoza skin (difference between both is wonton skin have eggs, and gyoza skin is slightly thicker)

My all time favorite has always been the shomai. So I found this shomai recipe which doesnt seem too complex. The recipe however have some pork related ingredients, which I omit and substitute for other things (because I dont eat pork). And I add a few things which I thought will make it taste even better.I got the recipe from this blog called No-Recipe. I found the recipe doable, and they have a step-by-step instruction with photos.

In my version, the changes that I made was

I substituted pork fat with olive oil, and potato starch with corn starch
Omit the shaoxing wine and put more soy sauce and sesame oil
Add some enoki mushrooms and glass noodles

I did, however made it too big, and I was so ful after 4 shomai. But it was delicious, taste almost like my favorite one from Toh Yuen.

Following my earlier success, I decided to try again, this time Prawn and Shallot Wontons. For the filling, I basically used similar recipe as before, but I made a few changed to it.

Prawn and Shallot Wontons

Ingredients:

350g prawns, shelled and deveined
1 tsp salt
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp peeled, grated fresh ginger
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tsp cornstarch
4 shallot
3 dashes ground white pepper
1/2 beaten egg, for sealing wontons

Method:

Coarsely chop the shrimp into pieces (not too small) and mix well with the rest of the ingredients. Set aside. Fill each wonton skin with about 1 heaping teaspoon of the filling and seal the wonton skin with the beaten egg.

Steam the wontons in steamer for 7-9 mins or you can boil them till they float. Serve hot with soy sauce or ginger vinegar dipping sauce.

Sesame Soy Dipping Sauce

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons sesame seeds
4 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 tablespoon chopped scallion

Method:

Mix the above ingredients and set aside.

Using the same recipe as the Prawn and Shallot, I made another batch of Har Gow using the gyoza wrappers I had: with mushrooms. I added a handful of white mushroom to the mix. I freeze these Prawn and Mushroom Har Gow and use it in my soups. Which is way better than buying frozen ones from the store!

People have been asking me if it's difficult - making your own dumplings. But I've been told what's easy for me might be hard, and I dare not put a scale to it. It's a bit tedious, but for me the tedious part is just the folding. Personally I think it's worth it.