Steamed duck pudding 糯米封鴨塊

from PM’s CC Vol II. Rich peppery duck is steamed with sticky rice with mushrooms, sausage, shrimps, and lotus seeds. Takes a long time but everything is steamed, so it could all be done in the rice cooker!

糯米 nuo4mi3 — glutinous rice

封 fung1 — sealed

鴨塊 ya1kuai4 — duck pieces

I was hoping there was a gizzard in the paper package, but it was just a lost chicken neck.

This puppy takes a long time, but not much of it is active. The dried lotus seeds need to be soaked for a long time in cold water (I did overnight), then individually examined to remove any green shoots, which are bitter. The duck is steamed for an hour, then de-boned. I also prefer to remove the skin, which is extremely fatty. The deboned duck is cut into bite-sized pieces and attractively arranged in the bottom of a bowl. Seasoning sauce is poured around the edge.

The mushrooms, lotus seeds, sausage (or ham), dried shrimps, and gizzard (I didn’t find one in time) pieces are sauteed together, rice wine and soy sauce are tossed in, and the glutinous rice is mixed in. The rice mixture is packed on top of the duck, and the whole thing is steamed a second time for about an hour.

The rice cooker was busy steaming other things, so I went for the stovetop method: put a few cups of water in a wok or large pan, then place some sort of supporting device (like a metal stand) on the bottom. Put the bowl of food on the stand, cover, heat the water to a simmer and steam. Sometimes a little juggling of metal stand and cover is needed to make sure the steaming chamber is relatively sealed (cookie cutter and cookie sheet FTW this week).

Once the steaming is complete, the bowl is inverted onto a plate. The bowl’s very hot and there’s some splash-happy liquid in there, so be careful!

Time taken: 3 1/2 hours

Difficulty level: deboning the duck can be a bit messy, and requires patience. That’s why I got someone else to do it.

So it was a little messy to decant.

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Spinach and bean curd soup 菠菜豆腐湯

from PM’s CC Vol II. A clear, delicate soup with spinach and tofu, seasoned with a bit of pork and a splash of pepper.

菠菜 bo1cai4 — spinach

豆腐 dou4fu3 — tofu

湯 tang1 — soup

Hunka hunka pork, with sidekicks.

There was an option to use dried black mushrooms or bamboo shoot, and I had the mushrooms on hand. Tasty, though since they have a strong flavor (I added the soaking liquid to the soup as well), using bamboo shoots would definitely give a different feel.

The soup could be easily made vegetarian by omitting the pork and ham. PM tells us to serve with a sprinkle of black pepper; a dash of sesame oil would be great as well, particularly for the veg version.

Time taken: 30 minutes

Difficulty level: easy peasy pie

Flecks of pepper

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Potstickers 鍋貼

from PM’s CC Vol I. Who doesn’t love potstickers?! Yum!

鍋貼 guo1tie1 — potstickers!

Ingredients:
3/4 lb ground pork
4 oz shelled shrimp, diced
3 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked, minced
10 oz Napa cabbage
1 scallion, minced
1 ts ginger, minced
2 Tb soy sauce
1/2 ts salt
2 Tb sesame oil
~50 potsticker wrappers OR
wrappers:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup boiling water
1/4 cup cold water, as needed

Method:
1. to make wrappers, add boiling water to flour and mix with chopsticks. slowly add cold water a little at a time, kneading with hands until dough is formed. cover with cloth and let stand 15 mins.
2. mix pork, shrimp, mushrooms, scallion, ginger, soy sauce, salt, sesame oil until thickened.
3. blanch cabbage in boiling water ~ 2 mins, plunge into cold water and squeeze dry. chop finely, squeeze dry again, add to pork mix. OR finely chop raw cabbage, add 1 ts salt, mix to combine, let stand 20 mins, squeeze dry and add to pork mixture.
4. if making wrappers, remove dough to floured board and knead until smooth. divide into 40 pieces. flatten each piece by hand and roll into 2 1/2″ round thin pancake.
5. fold potstickers: put 1 Tb filling in center, fold over to make a half circle, and pinch edges together. carefully stretch a little longer.
6. heat pan very hot. add 2 Tb oil. when oil is hot enough, add enough dumplings to cover bottom of pan (in pretty pattern). cook until bottoms are golden brown, about 1 min. add 2/3 to 1 cup water, cover, steam until water is gone. fry another 1/2 min.
7. place serving plate over frying pan. invert quickly. prepare remaining portions, serve.

Gonna make POTSTICKERS!!!

PM’s directions are fantastic. I think the shrimp really makes the dumplings that much yummier; so does rolling your own wrappers because the premade ones I found were a little tough while the ones I made were more delicate and crispy on the bottom.

Time taken: hours and hours, less if you don’t make your own wrappers

Difficulty: fairly high

I made two platefuls like this with this recipe.

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Steamed pastry with vegetables 菜包子

from PM’s CC Vol II. Baozi are everywhere, misting up the air around vast bamboo steamers. They’re great for a grab-n-go, a quick snack, or even for breakfast. Pork is a very common filling; here I present PM’s vegetarian version. In terms of complicated-looking dim sum, baozi are relatively easy to fold and pretty forgiving: after steaming, they all look like blobs anyway.

菜 cai4 — vegetables

包子 bao1zi3 — steamed bun with some kind of filling

Ingredients:
3 1/2 cups flour
1 Tb sugar
2 ts dry yeast
1  cup warm water
2 ts baking powder
1/4 cup cold water, as needed
1 1/4 lbs baby bok choy
3 Tb black mushrooms, soaked and chopped
1 Tb scallion, chopped
1 ts sesame oil
1 Tb soy sauce

Method:
1. mix flour and sugar in large bowl. dissolve yeast in warm water, add to flour, knead.
2. cover dough with wet cloth, let rise 3-4 hours.
3. dissolve baking powder in cold water, add to dough.
4. dice bok choy. sprinkle 1 ts salt, wait 20 mins, squeeze dry. mix in sesame oil, soy sauce, mushrooms, scallion.
5. knead dough on pastry board. cut into egg-sized pieces. flatten with palm and roll into circles 1/4″ thick at edge, 1/2″ in middle.
6. put 1 1/2 Tb stuffing in center of skin, pleat and center all the pleats to the top with a twist. make sure skin is closed tightly and there are no air bubbles.
7. let shaped dumplings rest 20 mins. steam on a wet cloth or paper towel 20-30 mins.

Dried bean curd crashes the party.

I made the dough as directed. For the filling, I added an extra couple squares of dried bean curd, diced. I think soaked and chopped bean vermicelli would also be a great addition.

In step 5, I can’t stress enough the importance of leaving the center of the dough circle thicker than the edges. Here’s a suite of pictures, hopefully helpful:

Place the baozi at least an inch apart in your steaming apparatus, whether it’s a bamboo steamer or a rice cooker. I tried to fit 6 in each layer, and they ended up glued to each other.

Time spent: 1 day

Difficulty: for dim sum, not too hard.

Snug as a bug in a rug. In retrospect, perhaps too snug.

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Chinese cabbage with shrimps

Not a PM recipe, but nonetheless a classic. I’m including it because I always end up with a bunch of extra napa cabbage that needs to get used up. The dried shrimp and black mushrooms add flavor to an otherwise blank cabbage-y page.

Ingredients:
1/2 lb Napa cabbage, chopped into 1in wide strips
1 stalk scallion, minced
3-4 slices ginger
2 Tb dried shrimps, soaked and drained
3-4 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked, sliced into strips
1/2 cup water (mushroom soaking liquid)
1 ts soy sauce
1/2 ts sesame oil

Method:
1. stir-fry cabbage in oil for 1-2 mins, until leaves start to wilt. remove.
2. fry scallion and ginger until fragrant. add shrimps and mushrooms, stir, add cabbage and mushroom water. bring to boil. add soy sauce, salt to taste.
3. when water has almost reduced, add sesame oil. remove and serve.

Cute little shrimps!

No real secrets here. If the shrimps smell funky, or if you’re vegetarian, just leave them out. It’ll still be tasty! You can thicken the sauce with cornstarch if you like, or not if you don’t like. I usually don’t.

Time taken: 20 mins

Difficulty level: easy.

Here we go.

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