home made siu mai 燒賣 - part 1

I didn't planned ahead to make siu mai 燒賣. It was an impromptus thing as I have some small shrimps and pork in the fridge. Why not make a few siu mai. I knew I need the special yellow warpers that most people buy from stores. I figured I would just make my own with general purpose flour, which would not have the yellow food coloring.
While I had made siu mai with store bought wrappers before, I have long since bought wrappers for all kinds of Chinese delights. I found most to be too thick. Additionally I tend to waste them with the left overs that I tried to store in the freezer, but invariably they cannot be used again after a few months. No more store wrappers, I decided.

my filling was a bit runny as I put in one whole egg; because of it I had a hard time making the siu mai holding the cylindrical shape

also I made the wrapper quite thin and hence a bit saggy so the siu mai drooped; it was a race between the steam that firmed it up and the saggy sack

The shape didn't turn out to be idea but they tasted better than what I can get in this town. This is what eating my own dog food is like. I made them, so I ate them.

it tasted just fine though so I made a few more for a hearty snack

no fancy fish roes on top though

The dim sum portions nowadays have gotten larger by the year. I dislike jumbo size servings so I made mine smaller. They are so tasty that is a sin to make them so big that you gorge on them.

I gave the filling some rest in the refrigerator. I then gave it some vigorous stirring and that made it stickier and firmer. By then I gotten pretty good in rolling out consistent size thin wrappers. I made four more and they held the shape better. As I have not yet receive the steamer liners I use a stainless steel plate rubbed with oil to steam them.

this bamboo utensil is purpose made for this and wrapping wontons

A few things I observed. You want to let them rest a bit before biting into them. The resting allows the still very wet skin that was just come out of the steamer to dry off a bit, making the texture that a siu mai should have. Likewise the filling also firms up giving the right mouth feel.

What is interesting is my filling looks very pale despite I used some light soy sauce for seasoning. As my ingredients are all honest to god without additive, mine does not have the reddish color. Not big difference is mine don't have the excessive amount of pork fat as found in a lot of dim sum places. Nowadays a lot of dim sum restaurant no longer make their own dim sum. Instead of making fresh in house they are frozen factory made for restaurants.

 oolong tea to wash them down

for these little ones that I made, they take about 6 minutes of steaming with a bamboo steamer; they took longer than I estimated and I think the reason is the use of the stainless steel plate

I plan to make har gow 蝦餃 from scratch in the near future. For me siu mai 燒賣 and har gow 蝦餃 are dim sum must haves. They are the two dishes that I judge a dim sum place by. Har gow 蝦餃 wrappers require a different kind of flour, and use a flat knife to form the round shape rather than using a wooden dowel. I actually have bought a bag of this special flour but just haven't found the knife to make har gow 蝦餃 with.

It may seems boring to only have siu mai 燒賣 but I don't mind. They are delicious and I can eat them all day. The preparation all from scratch is rather relaxing.

another made to order of four pieces

It would later occurred to me that my siu mai 燒賣 odd appearance is mainly that the wrappers do not have the yellow color that we are all accustomed to. The yellow skin would give some color contrast to the meat and shrimp filling. It also occurred to me that we are so used to the artificial color that is so over the top while the original yellow color comes from the addition of egg to the dough.

this lady also explained the reason of wanting a yellow wrapper at 1:42; she also said that lye water is added too