Culinary achievements, dim sum edition. Dim sum is so labor intensive, but readily available around these parts that it’s rarely cooked at home. But when I saw Classic Deem Sum in a used bookstore in Atwater Village I knew it was coming home with me.
In San Francisco, Yank Sing is practically a dim sum institution. My sister-in-law’s mom actually used to work at Yank Sing, and she sends over batches of red bean-filled sesame balls (jeen deuih) so crispy fresh and perfectly spherical that they don’t look like they could have come from a home kitchen. I was certainly inspired by her homemade treats when I decided I’d make something from this book. Classic Deem Sum was printed in 1985, and has recipes for just about every dim sum basic–from spring rolls to taro dumplings, pillows of beef wrapped in rice noodles and crispy turnip cakes–along with hand-drawn illustrations showing how to pleat perfect shrimp dumplings and squeeze fish paste balls out of your fist. I love everything about this book, right down to the Chinese romanization that’s intended for Cantonese speakers.
It being dim sum (or deem sum!), it’s hard to find a recipe in the book that doesn’t require making your own sheets of rice noodles or pounding out your own fish paste or firing up a pot of hot oil for deep-frying. I’ve got a few recipes marked for when I’m feeling more ambitious but in the meantime I started with stuffed tofu. The recipe is actually terribly easy. It took me about 45 minutes, start to finish, and I was just putzing around the kitchen.
Even better, this dish didn’t require anything beyond Cantonese kitchen basics to bring it to life. There was no need to haul myself over to SGV to pick up any new ingredients. I did swap out the suggested ground pork for ground turkey and left off shrimp and cilantro, but that’s all your call. It’d probably also taste great with some chopped up water chestnuts in there, too. I will say: of all the ingredients in the stuffing, the tapioca starch is probably the most important. It lightens the meat and smooths out the texture of the stuffing so it’s not like eating a meatball inside a stewed tofu triangle. It’s more like a stuffed tofu pillow.
We’re talking serious Chinese comfort food here. Make a pot of rice, a plate of veggies and there’s dinner for two.
Stuffed Bean Curd (Yeung Daufoo), adapted from Classic Deem Sum by Henry Chan, Yukiko Haydock and Bob Haydock
4 fresh shiitake mushrooms, finely chopped
4 ounces ground turkey, minced
half of a beaten egg
2 tbsp minced green onion, green and white parts
½ tsp finely minced ginger
2 tsp tapioca starch
2 tsp Shao Hsing wine
1 ½ tsp soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp salt
½ tsp sesame oil
a dash of ground white pepper
1 tbsp chicken stock
1 tbsp oyster sauce
Bean Curd Sauce Ingredients:
2 tsp cornstarch mixed with 1 tbsp water
1 container firm tofu
cornstarch for dusting
oil for pan-frying
1) Mix together stuffing ingredients thoroughly until pasty. Refrigerate until ready to stuff.
2) Prepare bean curd sauce. Combine all sauce ingredients except for cornstarch/water mixture) in a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer. Once it’s bubbling, stir in cornstarch/water mixture. Simmer while stirring until sauce thickens. Remove from heat and set aside.
3) Drain liquid from tofu container and slice tofu block in quarters, and then cut each quarter diagonally into triangles.
4) Cradle a triangle in your palm and scoop out a pocket (about 1 tbsp) along the diagonal angle.
5) Dust each cavity and cut surface with cornstarch.
6) Fill each cavity with stuffing mixture, mounding it up to cover the cut surface.
7) Heat a large heavy flat-bottomed frying pan to hot and coat the bottom with ¼ cup of oil.
8) Place the triangles, filling side down, in the pan and fry at medium heat.
9) When filled edge is brown (about 4 minutes) turn the triangles onto their flat sides and pan fry.
