Many of my best dim sum experiences have been in nontraditional situations. Years ago, I was attending a festival in Kuala Lumpur where I befriended Bong Jun Choi, executive chef at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. I was mesmerized by the hotel kitchen’s dim sum. I brought my family back to the hotel that weekend, and it wasn’t until halfway through our meal that I realized it was a halal kitchen and no pork was used—dim sum, no pork! Wow, they pulled it off! Shui mai (or
shaomai), small steamed dumplings, were filled with a shrimp filling (instead of pork and shrimp); fluffy, stark-white steamed buns, usually filled with roasted pork, were packed with sweet, roasted chicken. Another unusual aspect was the complete lack of traditional dim sum service carts. Lesson learned: With some ingenuity, we can veer from the traditional style of service and ingredients and still come up with impressive recipes and authentic flavors.
Not long ago, on our last day of a one-month culinary journey around Southeast Asia, my sous chef and I were in Singapore. We headed to the Crystal Jade Palace, another renowned dim sum establishment devoid of traditional service carts. In the mood to celebrate, we splurged and ordered a bottle of champagne. The staff was happy to oblige, as it was a common occurrence. It turned out to be a fantastic pairing! We sipped bubbly and noshed on steamed dumplings, crispy fried peanuts and delicate soup dumplings with their molten centers of rich pork bouillon.
Disseminating dim sum
With advancements in meat processing and packaging, Chinese-style roasted pork, known as char sui or lacquer roasted pork, should be more readily available, ready to go. This anise-spiced, hoisin-marinated pork is slowly roasted and slathered with a final coat of maltose, soy sauce and sesame oil—a final stage that operators could execute, giving them the final touch.
Dumplings have become the default icon of dim sum. Thin, wheat-based wrappers are favored for steamed dumplings such as shui mai, since they cook relatively quickly. On the other end of the scale, thick wrappers encase meaty fillings so they stand up to brutal pan-frying, gaining a deep, golden crust before they are steamed for a final cooking. Delicate wrappers based on tapioca starch are the choice for har gao (or har gow). The crescent-shaped, pleated dumplings become translucent when steamed, so the filling can be seen. Hence, these jewel-like morsels are sometimes referred to as “crystal dumplings.”
Manufactured dumplings are made for both foodservice and retail distribution. For instance, Phillips Foods, Inc., Baltimore, MD, offers the Asian Rhythms line of frozen dim sum items to answer the demands of the professional kitchen. Kurt Kahrs, corporate executive chef, Phillips Foods Asia, Bangkok, Thailand, notes that, during the development, one of the first challenges was selecting appealing shapes and sizes, and overcoming the bland iterations already on the market, most based on surimi. “One thing we aimed for is to have a real shrimp taste vs. what most commercial seafood dim sum has, which is surimi first with a bit of shrimp,” he says. Phillips steams its assortment of dim sum, which includes shrimp shui mai, seafood shui mai, and shrimp har gao. Cantonese shui mai often contain ground pork and shrimp, as well as minced Chinese black mushrooms. Har gao dumplings often consist of shrimp and bamboo shoots.
“We had many hard discussions between members of our management team here in Bangkok over the subtleties of more or less sesame oil, or spring onion, and whether the wrappers were too chewy or soft, etc.,” says Kahrs. “The biggest problem with these was getting the right texture and taste using lots of shrimp and none of the traditional pork fat that Chinese chefs tend to use. We achieved that by the addition of small amounts of oil to enhance mouthfeel, and egg and starches to get the springiness.”