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. 

Rangoon Ruby Cocktail: Perfect with Crab Rangoon

Asian dumplings can be enjoyed with many kinds of beverages, not just tea. Last week, my husband made a tropical cocktail to go with the deep-fried crab Rangoon wontons. It was a splendid way to finish the day, or start the night.

Trader Vic’s was, and still is, famous for its cocktails. Out of curiosity, I flipped to the back of the Trader Vic’s Pacific Island Cookbook to the “Drinks Recipes” chapter. Whoever owned the before me put the cocktail section to great use. It was the most stained part of the book.

There were recipes for San Francisco favorites, tropical drinks, and party punches. Names such as Silver Stallion, Tabu [sic], and Tiki Punch conjured up the restaurant's 'exotic' tiki atmosphere. A perfect place for crab Rangoon to reign supreme. But what would one drink with crab Rangoon? There were many options but I settled on the Rangoon Ruby. The wonton and drink are in the same ersatz club, no? There was even a cheesy, period-appropriate photo too!

The Rangoon Ruby is in the back, on the far right.

Portuguese Egg Tart Recipe (Poh Taht, Pasteis de Belem)

Ask and you shall receive. Thank you to everyone who contributed insights on my question about Portuguese-Chinese egg tarts. They are a Portuguese treat called pasteis de Belem (a.k.a., pastel de nata) that were brought to Macau and adopted quite heartily by the Chinese. The Chinese, particular those in nearby Hong Kong created a riff by making their own Hong Kong-style egg tarts in the 1940s. The resulting Cantonese dahn taht has become ubiquitous with Chinese bakeries and dim sum houses.

Many of you submitted Portuguese egg tarts tips, such as where I can get them in the Bay Area, such as the bakery in Milpitas Square off the 880 freeway, in the 99 Ranch Market shopping center. Amy Sherman of CookingwithAmy.com gave a link to her post on the famous Portuguese egg tarts from the Antiga Confeitaria de Belém pastry shop in Lisbon, Portugal. That bakery was the one that commercialized the tarts in 1837.  Before then, Portuguese egg tarts were made and sold by the Catholic nuns of the Jerónimos Monastery.  (Praise the sisters!) Others pointed to the Macao institution that’s renowned for their Portuguese egg tarts – Lord Stow’s bakery. Stowe's cross between the English and Portuguese versions is the benchmark for Portuguese egg tarts in Asia. Egg tart fever hit Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan in the late 1990s.

I looked up Stow’s and found this YouTube video which was incredibly enlightening. Watch it and in the first minute, catch how the pastry is rolled up into a cylinder and then pressed into the tart shell! For those of you who have the Asian Dumplings cookbook – that cylindrical treatment of dough is the same as what’s used for Chinese flaky pastry on page 120 to make things like Malaysian curry puffs. I now wonder if the Chinese got that from the Portuguese? I’ve not seen that technique applied to puff pastry in other cuisines.

By using a cylinder of rolled up puff pastry-type dough (some describe it as a Swiss roll) for the pastry, the tart shell naturally pushes upwards as it bakes in the oven. All that hot air forces the custard to puff up like a mushroom cap and when things deflate after baking, you get the characteristic undulating top. I know this because I went about five rounds with baking the tarts to develop my own Portuguese egg tart recipe.

Chinese Steamed Rolls Recipe

Chinese yeast dough is extremely versatile and easy to prepare. In fact, I usually let the food processor do the work so that the dough comes together in minutes. With the dough, I make filled buns to create steamed or pan-fried bao. Or I form the dough into little rolls that can be served alongside rich meats, such as Cantonese roasted pork, roasted duck, deep-fried duck or braised pork belly. You may have seen these types of rolls at Asian weddings, celebrations and the frozen food aisle at  Chinese markets. They're also the ones at places like Momofuku Ssam Bar and Noodle Bar in New York City. No Ancient Chinese secret here. Just an easy yeast dough made from grocery store ingredients. As a bonus, you can freeze the steamed rolls for up to 3 months. Just thaw and resteam to refresh and reheat.

Vegetarian Daikon Rice Cakes a la Slanted Door Recipe (Luo Bo Gao)

 

To test drive Wai Chu’s recipe for Chinese daikon radish cakes, I bought a lot of daikon radish. You never know how much you’ll need and I didn’t want to keep running back to the store. Wai’s luóbo gāo (lok bok gow in Cantonese,  蘿蔔糕) from The Dumpling cookbook worked out like a charm on the first run-through so I had several pounds of leftover radish, some of which were used for Vietnamese daikon and radish pickles (do chua) that I’ll be stuffing into banh mi sandwiches.

Watching Charles Phan compete against Cat Cora on Iron Chef America's battle almond got me thinking about Slanted Door’s vegetarian version of the daikon radish cakes. I recalled Phan proudly telling me in an interview how he infused a lot of umami into the cakes so that people wouldn’t miss the traditional dried shrimp and Chinese sausage. The Vietnamese cooks at Slanted Door who are in charge of the radish cakes said that it’s a perennial favorite; they should know as they’ve worked with Phan for many years. In tribute to Phan and his hardworking staff,  I decided to take Wai's recipe and make it vegetarian.

Korean Napa Cabbage Kimchi Recipe (Mak Kimchi)

One of my favorite vegetarian Asian dumplings is Korean kimchi mandu. I love them poached, pan-fried, steamed, and deep-fried. The punchy filling says, “I am Korean, not a knockoff of Chinese dumplings!” The key to making kimchi mandu well is to have aged,  very fragrant  (read: stinky) kimchi. The more mature the kimchi the better, my Korean friends say, because it gives mandu more gusto. Mandu filling tends to be fairly bland as it contains tofu and vegetables such as zucchini squash and bean sprouts. You need a little extra oomph for mandu, and good stinky kimchi is requisite.

Korean Pickled Jalapeno and Garlic Recipe

I love all the banchan sides served at the Korean table. In the realm of Korean dumplings (called mandu), banchan provide wonderful textural and flavor contrast to the soft chewy dough and savory filling. This simple pickle recipe embodies a Korean pickling method called jang-ajji in which the featured vegetable marinates in tangy sweet soy and vinegar. Traditionally, the raw vegetable steeps in the brine for weeks. I speed things up by bringing all the ingredients up to a boil and then turning the heat off. The crisp texture remains intact.

Korean cooks typically make either a chile pepper jang ajji or a garlic jang ajji. I like them both so I combined them into one. You can separate them if you’d like. The garlic mellows so it’s safe for date night!

Slanted Door's Hue Rice Dumplings Recipe (Banh Xep Chay)

I know you’ll think me crazy, but to mark the release of Asian Dumplings  this week, I made a new dumpling. It’s one that I can’t get out of my mind. Every time I've ordered the Hue rice dumplings at Charles Phan’s Slanted Door restaurant in San Francisco, I’m tickled by their dainty appearance and rich mung bean and caramelized shallot flavor. The garnish of rich scallion oil and spicy soy sauce imparts extra plush and savory qualities. The dumplings are slightly chewy and soft and a bit translucent, a result of the wrapper being made from rice flour and tapioca starch. Slanted Door names these morsels Hue rice dumplings as they are similar to a tapioca-based Hue dumpling called banh bot loc, a classic dumpling from the central region of Vietnam, which many associate with the former imperial city of Hue. (For a banh bot loc recipe, see Asian Dumplings, page 147).

But the restaurant’s dumpling is actually more akin to a rice and tapioca starch dumpling called banh xep ("baan sehp"), which literally means “folded dumpling,” or turnover. Semantics aside, the Slanted Door’s rice dumpling is a delicious Vietnamese and vegan snack. Meat lovers won't feel shorted whatsoever.