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Dim sum


Dejah

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I am having a dinner party on Sunday...for about 16 people.

They requested dim sum as it is not readily available in our small city.

So far, I have made beef meat balls, har gow, sui mai, curry chicken in puff pastry,

chicken/lapchung/mushroom steamed buns, sticky rice in lotus leaf. I will also have ribs in black bean garlic sauce and a lomein with lots of vegetables.

Questions: Can anyone suggest a good or complimentary order to serve up these items?

What would be a good soup to serve with this? I know they would love hot 'n'sour or congee...but I feel these would be "too heavy".

How about dessert? I was thinking of red bean/lotus nut soup and fresh fruit tray?

Tea would be best?

BTW, I am new to the forum, and I am having a blast reading all the posts! Thank you :biggrin:

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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I vote for congee, as well. If you're using the types of bowls usually used at dim sum, the servings will be relatively small so your guests won't get too full from it.

There is no "proper" order as far as I know. Just serve everything at once and allow your guests to help themselves. I've seen tables at dim sum where people order and eat both sweet and savoury items at the same time, so you wouldn't even have to serve dessert last.

For sweet dim sum, my favourites are coconut buns and sesame balls (the ones filled with bean paste). I also like mango pudding but I've never liked any of the ones served at dim sum. Not very mango-y.

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I see you've decided on congee, but I was going to suggest that if you didn't want to serve congee, you could consider shrimp dumpling soup.

I always like to have chicken feet at dim sum, but most of my friends don't eat it.

Crab claws are fun to eat and popular.

Michael aka "Pan"

 

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Well, maybe I won't decide on the soup until Sat. night...wait for all the suggestions to come in! I was even thinking of a light soup...watercress, or winter melon.

I love chicken feet, but not sure if all my guests would appreciate the effort and time I'd take to make them :wink:

This forum is incredible. Wish I had found this sooner. There are so many "old threads" I would have loved to participate in.

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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Welcome, Dejah!

As prasantrin suggested, there is no particular order for dim sum. The carts roll by in seemingly random order, and you grab what you want when you can.

In San Francisco, people typically make do with egg tarts for dessert, and congee is about the only soup that you'll see at dim sum, unless you're blending dim sum in with lunch or dinner.

If you ask me (which you didn't) my must-have dim sum item is "bee's nest" taro croquettes!

Odd that you live in a town with youtiao but no dim sum.

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Thanks Gary, for the welcome :smile:

I live on the prairies where majority of the population is focused on meat and potatoes, Chinese buffet, pizza, etc. Our Superstore does carry a good assortment of Chinese vegetables, a few baked goods, etc. Several restaurants have tried the dim sum menu, but only a small select group of well travelled caucasians would partake. The Chinese population is small and they like to make their own;) Such thrifty people!

I would love to make the taro croquettes, at another time, after some practice IF you can give me the recipe and how-to's. Do you make custard tarts? Can you substitute any other kind of pastry recipe for the ones usually found in Chinese cookbooks. They always seem to be a lot of work :sad:

I am having my party for supper...or as Americans would say "dinner".

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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Welcome Dejah

Congee and gai larn as suggested by ecr sounds good to me too.

Here'a a link to a recipe for taro corquettes (Woo Kok).

I haven't tried making custard tarts but IMHO the flaky crumbly chinese-style pastry works best as it seems to melt in your mouth together the wobbly custard :biggrin:.

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Ah, Dejah, I don't cook, I only eat. My wife cooks Chinese exclusively, but she's Shanghainese, not Cantonese. For us, dim sum is all "eating out" stuff.

It seems like you've got a grip on making dim sum aleady. No taro croquettes (aka taro "puffs") in your source materials? I may have a recipe around for the bee's nest taro, I'll look for one. I buy Chinese cookbooks mostly to stare at the pictures, so I'm not sure if it'll be in English.

BTW, where I grew up dinner was also called "supper" and lunch was called "dinner".

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If you want another starchy dish with less meat, how about turnip cakes? These have a little pork in them. These are a favorite of mine at dim sum but I don't know too much about them. Does anyone have a recipe for these? Does one use preserved turnips?

Thanks

"Under the dusty almond trees, ... stalls were set up which sold banana liquor, rolls, blood puddings, chopped fried meat, meat pies, sausage, yucca breads, crullers, buns, corn breads, puff pastes, longanizas, tripes, coconut nougats, rum toddies, along with all sorts of trifles, gewgaws, trinkets, and knickknacks, and cockfights and lottery tickets."

-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1962 "Big Mama's Funeral"

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I live on the prairies where majority of the population is focused on meat and potatoes, Chinese buffet, pizza, etc. Our Superstore does carry a good assortment of Chinese vegetables, a few baked goods, etc. Several restaurants have tried the dim sum menu, but only a small select group of well travelled caucasians would partake. The Chinese population is small and they like to make their own;) Such thrifty people!

With the Superstore comment, I would have guessed you were from Winnipeg but since you lack dim sum in your area, I thought maybe somewhere in Saskatchewan :smile: .

I forgot to mention my favourite dim sum offering, which is hum sui gok. The dough is made from glutinous rice flour (I think) and is every so slightly sweet. It is filled with a ground pork mixture, then deep fried. I can't find a recipe by Googling, but there's a description of it here. In Winnipeg restaurants often refer to them as "deep fried Chinese perogy", which in my opinion, they are nothing like.

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Here is a link to an incredible dim sum place in San Francisco. Note that they say dessert items are to be eaten along w/ savory items. No recipes, but lots of mouth-watering pictures in the photo gallery at the bottom. They don't have it, but in addition to my favorite sweet-the egg tarts- I am also fond of little cubes of what I think is almond jello in a sweet sauce. Sometimes it has a little canned fruit in it. It is always served very cold, and it is very refreshing.

PS Please do just reply to the old threads. I haven't been here that long, and I love it when old threads pop to the surface.

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Re: turnip cake

Rhoda Yee gives an excellent recipe in her dim sum book.

She insists on Swan's Down(sp?) cake flour.

This recipe always works for me (and company.)

You can easily substitute sausage for the roast pork.

BB

Food is all about history and geography.

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Re: turnip cake

Rhoda Yee gives an excellent recipe in her dim sum book.

She insists on Swan's Down(sp?) cake flour.

This recipe always works for me (and company.)

You can easily substitute sausage for the roast pork.

BB

Thank you very much! Now don't have to limit myself to having this during dim sum visits...

"Under the dusty almond trees, ... stalls were set up which sold banana liquor, rolls, blood puddings, chopped fried meat, meat pies, sausage, yucca breads, crullers, buns, corn breads, puff pastes, longanizas, tripes, coconut nougats, rum toddies, along with all sorts of trifles, gewgaws, trinkets, and knickknacks, and cockfights and lottery tickets."

-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1962 "Big Mama's Funeral"

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May I come to your party?? LOL!

I'm new here, too, and I fully understand about finding this goldmine! Going over all the old threads is like being a kid in a candy store!

If you can get the You Tiao, they would be great with congee. Cut into little pieces, along with peanuts and slivered Sichuan pickle, and I would be in comfort food heaven. An easy light , light soup would be Chicken & Watercress, but as someone pointed out, it is not a soup you would see.

When I've done a Dim Sum meal, I've sometimes gone off the track and served Brownies laced with fresh orange/ tangerine peel and crystallized ginger. It is offered with a bowl of canned Chinese fruits - longan, loquat, lychee, mandarin oranges, pineapple, etc, and some fresh strawberries.

My must, when I do Dim Sum are Pot Sticker done Hugh Carpenter' style --- (Santa Barbara) Rather than add water to the fried dumplings, a mix of chicken broth, grated orange, some hoisin, oyster, and soy sauce is added. The end result is really tasty, and no need for a dip. (But this is just me ----- your selections are already great.)

About tea --- Whatever suits you. Dragon Well is good, as well as Jasmine. I like Ti Kuan Yin (Te Guan Yin) and I have been served Pu-Er.

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What about cheung fun or in English, rice rolls stuffed with shrimp, pork or beef? Alternatively, cheung fun can be "vegetarian" with green onions dried shrimp. To me the corner stone of dim sum dining must include har gow and the cheung fun, my two favourites.

Your meal sounds great so far. I would even suggest maybe egg drop soup if you want to go for something lighter than congee. But then again, congee is a favourite of dim sum dining.

For dessert, I like Gary's suggestion of egg tarts. You can make mini ones. I was at a fine dim sum establishment a few weeks ago, where they incorporated the idea of a "bird's nest" on the egg tart. They put small dollops of clear agar jelly atop the tart (in which they used a more custardy filling). The texture was an interesting addition to the old stand-by egg tart. We also had deep fried sesame balls. And they put a fusion twist on it by augmenting it with a chocolate dipping sauce. Very innovative.

But if you are looking for a nice, light, refreshing dessert I would suggest tofu flower with fruit.

If you get really ambitious, you can make individual lotus leaf packets of chicken and rice.

The possibilities are endless.

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Turnip cake is another one of my specialties, as with woo to cake (taro).

I use rice flour (NOT glutinous) in my mixture, with lap chung, mushrooms and dried shrimp. The woo kok is difficult to make, I think. I do have recipes, but Mom said they can disintergrate in the deep fryer quite easily :sad:

I am an ESL teacher at our university, (in Brandon, Manitoba, prasantrin),

and my Chinese students really appreciate these cakes:)

I'll have to check the store for nice crisp watercress...otherwise I will serve the

congee with you tiao. I love eating those just by themselves!

I have made potstickers with chicken and lots of slivered ginger. The addition of chicken stock. etc,sounds good, so I will try that for another party. In fact, there are so many good suggestions here I will HAVE to have another party:) Maybe I'll invite the students up after Xmas. They all want to learn how to make dim sum...so no work, no eat! :laugh:

Definitely, jo-mel et al, if you are close enough to Brandon, you are welcome to come "yum cha" with the gang. I have 96 sui mai, 60 har gow, 36 bao, 25 curry, 32 sticky rice and about 200 beef balls so far. I have frozen all these as I made them. Tomorrow, I will steam them as I pull them from the freezer. The curry will be baked.

The almond jelly is a substitute for tofu fa. That was ok when we couldn't have the dessert tofu that is now so available. I have made it, with milk, gelatine and almond flavoring.

You know what I miss?? Stinky tofu! Maybe I won't be able to handle it now...after being away from HK for 45 years :laugh: My older brother used to chase the vendor away when he smelled it coming!

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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The Chinese population is small and they like to make their own;) Such thrifty people!

i would have expected dimsum to be the local chinese

population's occasional luxury.

it's also possible they don't think too highly of the

dimsum quality and would rather make it themselves.

I forgot to mention my favourite dim sum offering, which is hum sui gok.  The dough is made from glutinous rice flour (I think) and is every so slightly sweet.  It is filled with a ground pork mixture, then deep fried.  I can't find a recipe by Googling, but there's a description of it here.  In Winnipeg restaurants often refer to them as "deep fried Chinese perogy", which in my opinion, they are nothing like.

glutinous rice flour is right.

in areas with larger chinese populations, ham sui gauk would probably not be served as dimsum, much more likely in the chinese bakeries.

yes, they're nothing like pierogies, but most people need something to relate new things to, rather than trying it first on their own, free of perceptions, and making their own opinions.

Herb aka "herbacidal"

Tom is not my friend.

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Odd that you live in a town with youtiao but no dim sum.

that's interesting.

i suppose in most metro areas, dimsum would have emerged first.

but of course you tiao is just one thing, and dimsum is composed of numerous different things.

therefore, you tiao is much easier to start selling.

plus dimsum in the US is one of the lowest margin Chinese lines of business, so you really need enough volume for it to work.

Herb aka "herbacidal"

Tom is not my friend.

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Turnip cake is another one of my specialties, as with woo to cake (taro).

I use rice flour (NOT glutinous) in my mixture, with lap chung, mushrooms and dried shrimp. The woo kok is difficult to make, I think. I do have recipes, but Mom said they can disintergrate in the deep fryer quite easily :sad:

I've never worked up the courage to make woo gok but I've been told by them that know that the secret to a nice lacy crust is lard. I also suspect most places use taro powder not fresh taro.

I'd love to hear how you make woo to cake, how is it different than lo bak, er, turnip cake?

regards,

trillium

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curry chicken in puff pastry

I forgot to ask...

Do you make your own puff pastry for the curry puffs? If you do, would you mind sharing your recipe? We used to buy curry puffs from Maxim's (in Winnipeg) but their pastry is terribly greasy. None of the dim sum places here have curry puffs so I've not eaten any since I was in Thailand (or maybe even Singapore!).

I teach ESL, too :smile: . I was at the U of M but I got out of that program fast, and am headed abroad again. I've discovered that it is very, very difficult to teach ESL in Winnipeg if you actually care about what you're doing. But that's getting way off-topic :smile: .

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We used to buy curry puffs from Maxim's (in Winnipeg) but their pastry is terribly greasy.

So I'm not the only who thinks Maxim's has disgusting pastries. I"m so glad you validated my same thoughts because I was just recently having an argument with someone about whether or not to bring Maxim's pastries as a hostess gift. Just because they are the only Chinese bakery in town (since the one in Chinatown closed a few years ago), does not make it the be all-end all of Chinese pastries in Winnipeg.

The last time I was there, I spyed industral cases of margarine in their fridge. Not only does that offend my purist sensibilities, but I also find it gross that their pastries are tasteless and lard-like.

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