Asian Dumpling Tips

Fried tofu and Egg Pancake Recipe (Tahu Telur)

Remarkably easy and versatile, Indonesian tahu telur (tahu means tofu and telur means eggs) is like egg foo yung with pieces of fried tofu. In its elemental state, a block tofu is subtle in flavor, a canvas for receiving other ingredients. However, if you fry tofu, it gets a little crunchy and nutty tasting, almost like crisp chicken skin. 

For these pancakes, small flattish pieces of tofu get fried and then mixed with egg. Then the mixture is dropped into hot oil and fried as amoeba-like pancakes with crisp surfaces and edges. The delicately rich and eggy result gets crowned with crunchy vegetables and savory-sweet-spicy sauce, typically peanut sauce or chile-spiked sweet soy sauce; both sauces are in the photo above. The combination of texture and flavors is amazing.

You can do a lot with these pancakes, including presenting them as an accompaniment to Southeast Asian dumplings. My thoughts drift to the following recipes in Asian Dumplings:

• Vegetarian crystal dumplings (chai kuih, p. 139)
• Curry puffs (karipap, p. 125) and sticky rice
• Spiced chicken in banana leaf (lemper ayam, p. 173)
• Baked or steamed curried chicken bao (p. 102)

As usual, jump to Viet World Kitchen for this Indonesian fried tofu and egg pancake recipe. 

Gluten-Free Asian Dumplings: Uses Beyond Pot Stickers

I suppose that you could say that I've displayed signs of OCDD (obsessive compulsive dissorder for dumplings). With a fine amount of dough and filling leftover from making the gluten-free pot stickers, I wanted to see how versatile the dough is. The great thing about dumplings is their versatility, right? With the basic dumpling dough in your back pocket, you can use different fillings, create different shapes, and cook your dumplings in a variety of ways.

So I put both kinds of gluten-free dumpling doughs (see the links below to the three recipe trials) to the test. My findings about how they worked with the various shapes and cooking methods are posted on VietWorldKitchen.com in this post.

Related posts:

• Gluten-Free Pot Stickers: Recipe Trial & Dough 3 (sorghum, sweet rice, and tapioca starch dough)
• Gluten-Free Pot Stickers: Recipe Trial & Dough 2  (millet, sorghum, tapioca, and potato dough; includes tips on working with GF dumpling dough)
• Gluten-free Pot Stickers: Recipe Trial 1 (on Asiandumplingtips.com)
• Guide to Building an Asian Dumpling Pantry
• Tolerance Test: Are Gluten-Free Asian Ingredients for You?

If you have the enhanced e-version of Asian Dumplings, these technique videos are included. Otherwise, see the printed book for details and/or watch my videos below, which are on Asiandumplingtips.com:

• How to roll out Asian dumpling wrappers
• Basic Asian dumpling shapes: Half Moon, Pea Pod and Big Hug
• Advanced dumpling shapes: Pleated Crescent
• Advanced dumpling shapes: Pleated Crescent
• How to shape a rope edge (for empanadas, turnovers, curry puffs)
• How to Fold a Closed Satchel

Gluten-Free Pot Stickers: Recipe Trial 3

What a difference a few years makes. My first attempt at gluten-free pot stickers was in December 2009. It was okay but I didn't go at it again until now. And after going a second round with making a gluten-free basic dumpling dough, I became a little obsessed and went for round 3.  

The second dough made of millet flour, sorghum flour, tapioca starch, and potato starch was pretty darn good. It cooked up to a good chew without being overly rustic. But I was curious about how I could add a little tenderness along with that chew.  I went back to my bookshelves and then into the kitchen.

Was the third time the charm? Kind of yes and kind of no. Check it out on VWK:  

Gluten-Free Pot Stickers: Recipe Trial 3

Related posts on this site and VWK:

• Gluten-Free Pot Stickers: Recipe Trial 2 (with tips on working with GF dumpling dough)
  
• Gluten-free Pot Stickers: Recipe Trial 1 
  
• Guide to Building an Asian Dumpling Pantry
• Tolerance Test: Are Gluten-Free Asian Ingredients for You?

If you have the enhanced e-version of Asian Dumplings, these technique videos are included. Other wise, see the printed book for details and/or watch my videos below:

• How to roll out Asian dumpling wrappers
• Basic Asian dumpling shapes: Half Moon, Pea Pod and Big Hug
• Advanced dumpling shapes: Pleated Crescent

Gluten-Free Pot Stickers: Round #2

Soon after the Asian Dumplings cookbook was published in 2009, people started writing me about gluten-free dumplings. My response was, “There are many gluten-free Asian dumpling recipes in the book. Check the rice, starch, and legume and tuber chapters for ideas.”

As you may know, I tried my  hand at making gluten-free pot stickers in December 2009 and they were just okay -- mediocre, actually. The dough vexed me and I kept simmering on it until I had time a couple weeks ago to tackled it again. I made two (2) gluten-free dumpling doughs to use in place of the Basic Dumpling Dough on page 22 of Asian Dumplings. 

It was a really interesting experiment in which I blended my own flour. I also made unexpected discoveries about working with gluten-free dumpling dough. How I went about it and my technical notes are in this post on Viet World Kitchen.com:

Gluten-free pot stickers: Recipe Trial 2

Check it out, even if you don't eat a gluten-free diet. 

Spicy Sardine Empanadas Recipe

My friends and family are my guinea pigs. We had an invitation to a friend’s house for dinner last night and I used that as an excuse to for a cross-cultural dumpling experiment. I felt brazen by Rebecca Caro, who recently made the empanada recipe from Asian Dumplings for her Latin food site, From Argentina with Love; she's also doing a giveaway of the book right now so enter if you don't own a copy!

Hey, if I suggest using a Mexican tortilla press as a shortcut for Asian dumpling dough, why not use the press on actual Mexican dough? In my cupboard, I had a small can of sardines in tomato sauce leftover from making a homemade version a while back. I decided to use the sardines for the spicy sardine puff (karipap sardin) filling in Asian Dumplings, page 129. Then, I encased the filling in a dough made from Mexican masa, the corn-based dough typically used for tortillas.  

Details on the experiment and recipe are on Viet World Kitchen.

Japanese Sweet Rice Dumplings with Brown Sugar Syrup Recipe (Shiratama Dango)

Though I'm finishing the manuscript for a new book, Asian Tofu, I still crave dumplings. After sending the last recipe chapter out for testing today, I went into the kitchen and made a new dumpling for fun. It's a Japanese favorite, made from sweet rice flour. Gluten-free, dairy-free, nutritious, easy, and very satisfying!

The poached dumplings are served with a thickened syrup, adzuki beans and some toasted soy flour. It may sound weird if you're not familiar with some of these ingredients but they work together marvelously. Check out the shiratama dango recipe on Viet World Kitchen!

Mochi Covered Dark Chocolate Truffles a la Betelnut

If you love dumplings and chocolate, this recipe is for you. Chefs Alexander Ong and Michael Siegel of Betelnut restaurant invited me for a lesson on how to make Siegel’s tasty creation, a mochi (sticky rice) wrapped dumpling that contains a filling of chocolate ganache. When I arrived at the San Francisco restaurant, Siegel was ready with all of his mis en place. We joked as he whisked, steamed, cut, and wrapped the dumplings. Siegel made it look so easy that for the first time, I felt like I could master Japanese wagashi-style confections and teach others too as well.

I had invited my dear friend Carolyn Jung of Foodgal.com to join us that afternoon, but I hadn’t fully explained what Siegel’s mochi dumpling was about. Carolyn had to squeeze our get together into her schedule, and when she arrived at Betelnut and discovered that the dumplings contained chocolate, she nearly exploded with glee.

“You didn’t tell me that he put CHOCOLATE into them!” she said. Oh. I told her they were truffle dumplings but the dumpling part got more to me and I overlooked the chocolate attraction to her!

When Carolyn tasted Siegel’s trio of mochi dumplings, she could barely contain herself to share them with the rest of us. I turned away for a few moments and when I returned my gaze to the mochi plate, it was empty.

Are Gluten Free Chinese Steamed Bao Possible?

Ever since I succeeded in making decent tasting gluten free pot stickers, I’ve been curious about making gluten free bao (Chinese steamed buns). I’d read about a Filipino technique of making their siopao from rice flour, but the recipes posted online were not well received. But if the Filipino rice flour bao did work, the dough would provide an answer for cooks obsessed with conquering super white steamed bao. My inquiring mind wanted to know.

I perused the ingredient labels of gluten free bread at my local health food store and Whole Foods, and noticed that rice flour was often one of the main ingredients. That was a plus. Then I reread the Bob’s Red Mill information on their website and the label for their all-purpose baking flour. The company said that you can use the flour blend of garbanzo bean flour, potato starch, tapioca starch, white sorghum flour, and fava bean flour – along with some xantham gum for good slimy measure to replicate the texture of wheat flour gluten. Another plus. The commercial gluten free breads I’d studied also contained xantham gum (a natural carbohydrate derived from bacteria). Seemed like a theme here.