Asian Dumpling Tips

Tips for Cooking Frozen Asian Dumplings

Making dumplings from scratch takes time, so how do you bank your effort for future meals? Freeze it! I have a stand-up freezer in my garage, and if you were to root in the freezer this morning, you’ll find the following dumplings stashed away in zip-top bags and plastic containers: three kinds of bao, lamb momo, lotus leaf packets (lo mai gai), and Indonesian spicy chicken and sticky rice packets (lemper ayam). Dumplings are at their best when made fresh and cooked fresh but hey, it’s always good to have a few frozen ones for instant gratification.

Recipes in Asian Dumplings contain freezing tips but a couple weeks ago, I received this email from Sue Rosen that prompted this post:

I love your new book and am having so much fun with it. The first batch I made (Pork and Napa Cabbage Water dumplings) got my husband to say, "this is the best thing you've ever made".  He happily ate the leftovers for the next couple of days.  When I made then again I decided to freeze half of them as you mention in the book. My question is, do I defrost them before cooking or just put them in the pot frozen?  And if I put them in frozen, how long do they need to cook?

My answer to Sue was this:

Let them partially thaw -- meaning let them sit out for 10 to 15 minutes before dropping them into the boiling pot of water. If they totally defrost, the dumplings can get mushy and be hard to pick up. I basically take the dumplings out of the freezer, put them on a piece of parchment and let them sit there while the water comes to a boil. If there's ice sticking to the dumplings, I wipe it off. If there are cracked dumplings, I try my best to smooth out the wrapper before cooking. This partial defrosting applies to pan-frying and steaming dumplings. [Addendum: Line your steamer tray with parchment and put the dumplings on top to thaw while you ready the water for steaming.]

In her response to my advice on cooking frozen dumplings, Sue revealed her ultimate motive for freezing dumplings:

I'm going away for the weekend and leaving my husband with those frozen dumplings.

She also sent along these photos of her dumpling achievements:

Water Dumplings and Steamed Buns by Sue Rosen
Thanks for the food styling the photos with beer and veggies!

Note that these cooking tips can be applied to store bought dumplings, such as the frozen Trader Joe's dumplings that I reviewed. Despite what the package says, I don't cooking dumplings straight from the freezer.

If you have tips to share on how you cook frozen dumplings, chime in. Or, if you have a question, email me!

Shaoxing Rice Wine: A Buying Guide

Several people have inquired in the past month about Shaoxing rice wine, a commonly used Chinese ingredient that I frequently reach for when making Asian dumplings. The questions asked include: (1) Where do I buy the rice wine? (2) Where is it stocked in an Asian market? and (3) What is a substitute for it? This post will hopefully answer those questions and more!

What is Shaoxing rice wine? How is Chinese rice wine used?
Amber colored, aromatic, and pleasantly nutty tasting, Shaoxing rice wine is the standard spirit in Chinese cooking. Made of brown glutinous (sweet/sticky) rice, it is one of the earliest types of liquors that the Chinese made. Shaoxing rice wine adds an unmistakable flavor and fragrance to dishes, whether it is mixed into Asian dumpling fillings, added to marinades for roasted meats such as char siu pork, combined with seasonings for stir-fries, or simmered with soy sauce and sugar for red-cooked dishes. If you’ve ever used sake in Japanese cooking, Shaoxing rice wine is employed quite similarly in Chinese cuisine. Sip on some of the rice wine and you’ll warm up quickly as it contains about 17 to 18% alcohol.

How to Make Steamed Chinese Bao White?

As absurd as that headline may sound to you, it’s a question many home cooks ask. What is the Chinese secret to getting their buns so snowy white? It’s like how is Wonder Bread produced? In Asia, there’s the notion – just like there used to be in much of the developed western world – that white colored food reflects modern progress, purity, and civility. (If you want more on this, read Laura Shapiro’s Perfection Salad and note what she says about the use of white sauce on page 91.) I have done a fair number of experiments, as a previous post on The Trick to Making Bao described, but I’d not gotten down to the nitty gritty. Here they are:

Does adding vinegar to bao dough make it whiter? Sorry. No. I’ve read of that trick in a number of Chinese American recipes and have tried it out, but the vinegar doesn’t do anything to the color. I suspect that the deal with adding the vinegar has to do with developing gluten in the dough. In order to get white bao, many Chinese American cooks use low-gluten (low-protein), bleached cake flour for their bao dough; cake flour is milled from soft wheat and has 8 to 10% gluten/protein. To make up for the flour’s lack of gluten a touch of vinegar is added to result in more chewy dough.

What Recipe Should I Start with in Asian Dumplings?

Several people asked me that question last week after they perused the Asian Dumplings cookbook. Here are my tips for getting started:

1. Before setting out on your Asian dumpling adventure, check your pantry to make sure you have the basic ingredients for making Asian dumplings.  At the least, be sure to have some all-purpose flour on hand. The regular kind from the supermarket works best. None of that fancy high-gluten stuff for rustic, chewy bread making! In general, unbleached all-purpose flour is better for savory dumplings and bleached all-purpose is preferred for sweet dumplings. See the sidebar on page 9 for an Asian dumpling pantry listing and use the glossary of ingredients to help you buy Asian ingredients. The photo on Page 14 includes the major flours and starches employed in Asian Dumplings. You can also review my post on how to build an Asian dumpling pantry.

2. Make sure you have the essential cooking equipment handy. See the discussion beginning on page 5. (Hint: The little rolling pin and a scale are extremely handy!)

Banana Leaf Basics

Just like many other foods, Asian dumplings cooked in banana leaves are extra heavenly. Open one up and inhale the leaf’s grassy perfume, then marvel at the dumpling’s dough which will be stained pale green. Finally bite into the dumpling and you’ll savor the mild tealike flavor that the banana leaf imparts during cooking. Many Southeast Asian dumplings rely on banana leaf for their trademark taste, fragrance, and appearance. Prime examples include banana-leaf packets of Indonesian sticky rice and spiced chicken (lemper ayam), Thai banana and coconut sticky rice (kao tom padt), and Vietnamese rice, pork and mushroom pyramids (banh gio).

Aside from contributing culinary aesthetics, banana leaf is also a practical kitchen tool. As a food wrapper, it functions like plastic wrap, parchment paper, and aluminum foil to prevent drying and sticking and retaining heat. You can lay banana leaf down and serve food on it like a plate or placemat, and fold it into various shapes as to-go containers. It's also a great for lining steamer trays to prevent sticking. It's biodegradable too. That’s ancient green living.

Quick Char Siu Pork from Trader Joe’s

As you know from last week’s review of frozen Asian dumplings, I’m on a bit of a Trader Joe’s jag. Another one of their Asian products that’s intrigued me lots has been their Chinese-Style Barbecue Seasoned Pork. That’s one big mouthful of a product name (not very catchy!) but ever since I spotted the item in the Fearless Flyer months ago, I’ve wondered if the pork could be used in Asian dumplings such as steamed and baked buns (bāo/bau) and fried sticky rice dumplings (xián shuǐ jiǎo/haam sui gok). Char siu  pork is also one my favorite add-ons in wonton noodle soup, and I love to stuff some in Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches.

How good is the pork? Can I recommend it for cooks who don't have the time to make their own or access to a Chinese barbecue shop? What can be done with the pork? Trader Joe’s does not identify the pork as Cantonese char siu pork but the orange-red coloring and thin long slabs of meat gave the pork’s identity away. The Chinese character printed on the label, 豬 (zhū) means pig, hog, swine. There was nothing about it being chā shāo/char siu pork (叉燒), which literally means fork roasted as the pork pieces are typically suspended on hooks during the roasting process to evenly expose the meat to the heat.

Tofu Skin -- A Vegan Dumpling Wrapper (Fu Pi)

 

Many doughy, starchy dumpling skins can be made from scratch but dumplings encased in tofu skin require a trip to an Asian market. Dried tofu skin may sound odd to you, as it does not resemble the soft white blocks of tofu that most of us encounter at the market. Nor does tofu skin resemble the dense pieces of pressed (baked) tofu sold in cryovac packages. Tofu skin (腐皮, fu pí in Mandarin, yuba in Japanese) is basically the thin layer that forms as soy milk boils in a shallow pan. (Think of the film of milk that forms when boiling milk.) The sheets of tofu skin is removed and dried for later use.

While there is great nutrition in tofu skin, what I enjoy about it most is its silky-soft-rubbery texture, which can be dropped into broth for soup and rolled up and manipulated into mock meat. But the best application for tofu skin (in my opinion) is for Cantonese dim sum in which tofu skin is used as a chewy, silky wrapper or a crackly crisp wrapper. The two most common sightings of tofu skin at dim sum are crisp shrimp and tofu skin rolls (xiā fu pí juǎn) and steamed tofu skin rolls filled with meat and vegetables. I’ve always loved those kinds of preparations involving tofu skin but never attempted to make them at home. A few weeks ago, I purchased a package of “fresh tofu skin” from the refrigerated section of one of my favorite Chinese markets (Lion Foods on Saratoga (off the 280 freeway) in San Jose, CA, to be exact) and took it home to play with.

How to Roll Asian Dumpling Wrappers (video)

Many people nervously giggle when I suggest that they make Asian dumpling wrappers from scratch.  Well, you can use the food processor for the dough -- I do that all the time -- but rolling out each individual wrapper is not that difficult. In fact, it's a low-tech job that children and older people can do! 

The video below takes off from where you've pressed out the dough pieces into small disks, whether that's done with a tortilla press or some other flat-bottomed heavy object. The written instructions in Asian Dumplings (see chapter 1) are pretty clear but you may need some visuals for extra assistance. Note that the rolling technique below is used not just for dumplings like pot stickers (guo tie) and Shanghai soup dumplings (xiao long bao) but also for wonderful Asian treats such as stuffed buns (bao) and curry puffs.

Update, January 2010: Should you need further guidance on dealing with the dough log at the front end, see the expanded video tutorial on how to roll out Asian dumpling wrappers.