A
month ago I bought Iberico pork belly and prawns from my local butcher and I
asked on Stories for cooking suggestions. Then @jchli7 kindly advised me to
make siu mai, I never made dumplings or any Chinese wrapping things before so I
really doubted myself if I can make it... However, I have been craving dim sum for
so long (still need to get my dim sum fix sorted), I decided to make it myself,
and the result was…WHOA! Just the taste of dim sum restaurant, and look at what I've turned it out!
INGREDIENTS
-Dumpling
skins.
-12
x Prawns (200g), peeled and deveined, then pat dry and chop into small pieces.
(Keep
3-5 prawns to top on siu mai)
-Iberico
pork belly (270g), chop into small pieces.
-5
x Shiitake mushrooms, soak in water until soften, then drain and cut
into fine bits.
-Trout caviar and chives for decoration.
FOR
MARINADE
-1/2
tsp salt
-1
tbsp soy sauce
-1
tbsp rice cooking wine
-1
tsp sugar
-1/2
white pepper
-1
tbsp sesame oil
-1/2
tsp baking soda
-1/2
tsp plain flour
METHOD
1. Mix
chopped pork belly, prawns and shiitake mushrooms thoroughly with marinade
sauce together in a large bowl, leave it in the fridge for 30 minutes to let
the ingredients absorb the sauce.
2. Scoop
the meat fillings onto the centre of dumpling skin, use your hand to bring up
the sides of wrapper around the fillings to make a cup shape. Put more fillings
if needed.
3. Gently
squeeze and stick the fillings together into dumpling wrapper with the opposite
end of spoon, keep using both hands to straighten it and form a better shape.
4. Put
the prawn on top of each siu mai, steam for 15-18 minutes. (my siu mai is HUGE,
otherwise the traditional bite-sized ones take about 7-10 minutes to steam.)
5. Garnish
with Trout
caviar and chives before serving.
I
didn’t manage to get wonton or siu mai skins so I used dumpling wrappers, and
it turned out with 10 super huge and chubby siu mai. (I’ve never seen that big
siu mai in my life.) All the process was actually easier than I thought, just
needed to chop and prepare the ingredients, stuff the fillings into wrappers
and steam, that’s it. And these homemade ones were so so tasty that I was happy to make it.
@jchli7 put a very useful step-by-step siu mai wrapping tutorial on his instagram highlight, I followed his steps and it’s easy to understand, defo worth checking it out if you are a beginner to make this much-loved Cantonese dumpling thing.
