Thai Pearl Dumplings

I may have mentioned once or twice in the past, just how much I love Yum Cha/ Dim Sum/ Asian Dumplings.

The only problem of course, is finding ones that are InTolerant Friendly for InTolerants like me.

Apparently I'm not the only one out there who craves a good dumpling or two, as the most viewed post on my blog by far is the one on Gluten Free Chinese Dumplings.
http://intolerantchef.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/gluten-free-chinese-dumplings.html

This recipe used Glutinous Rice Flour (not related to gluten at all) and fresh Taro to make gorgeously slippery little dumplings or rice rolls that were truly just as nice as the ones I get at my favourite Dim Sum restaurant.

As it's obviously touched a culinary nerve or two, I thought I'd expand a bit on the Asian Dumpling theme a bit in the coming weeks, starting with today's offering of Thai Pearl Dumplings.

These have got to be the easiest dumpling skins around, just Pearl Tapioca Balls and water, that's it. How easy is that! An added bonus it that they are absolutely delicious, very chewy though, so be prepared for a multi textural experience with these little lovelies.

Dumpling Skins


1 cup Tapioca Pearls
1/2 boiling Water
Pinch Salt



Cover the tapioca pearls with cold water then drain immediately

Pop the pearls back in the bowl, add the salt and boiling water and stir well

Cover and put them aside while you make the filling

Really, you could stuff the dumplings with whatever filling you like. I wanted to try and replicate one of BigJ's favourites from our local Thai restaurant, that's full of sweet caramelised peanuts mixed with minced pork. Sounds strange? Well, by the time you balanced out the sugar with fish sauce and lime juice, you get that whole Sweet/Sour/Salty balance that's essential in any Thai meal.
In this case the filling needs to be quite assertive as the dumpling skin is pretty tasteless on it's own, and needs that wow factor when bitten into

Dumpling Filling

300gr ground Pork or Chicken
1/2  cup Crushed Peanuts- I dry roasted them in the fry pan for about 2 minutes first for a much stronger flavour
1/4 cup Brown Sugar
1/4 cup (ish) Fish Sauce
1/4 cup (ish) Lime Juice
1 big Tablespoon crushed Ginger
1 big Tablespoon crushed Garlic
1 big teaspoon Lemon Grass Paste
Spring Onions finely chopped




Cook off the mince meat, ginger, garlic and lemon grass until sealed

Add in the brown sugar, sauce and juice and keep stirring until it all caramelises and changes colour to a deeper brown colour. Keep an eye on it though as it could catch quickly. If you're having a hard time, add in a touch more sugar and a splash or two of water as needed

Taste the mix, and adjust the balance of flavours by adding more fish sauce/juice/sugar until it's juuuust right. Take off the heat.
Toss through the peanuts and spring onions, then set aside to cool

Now the fun part!

First things first, take off any rings- your hands will get all gunky and you'll be grateful you heeded my warning





Gather the tapioca into a ball and knead it until it comes together

Roll it into a sausage shape, then cut into twelve equal pieces- I started with 24, but changed my mind :)

Wet your hands in a bowl of cold water, then flatten the balls in the palm of your hand while making a kind of little cup to hold the filling

Place a spoonful of filling in the middle of the cup

Scrunch your hand around the filling

Pinch the edges together, smoothing it down with with a wet finger to encase the filling totally and making a nice round ball

This makes about 12 golf ball sized dumplings You could make them smaller, but it would certainly be harder to pat the dough out thin enough

Pop the little dumplings into a steamer for about 20 minutes, or until all the dough goes from white to totally translucent I sprayed the bottom of the racks with a little oil as these dumplings are very,very sticky when they're hot

They look like jelly fish on the outside, don't they?
Now I tried one of these while they were still hot, and while the flavours were nice the texture could be challenging to some people. The dough was sticky, stretchy and very gloopy- hard to chew and swallow actually. There's a reason these are traditionally served just warm or at room temperature :)






















The dough goes more opaque as it cools down

The usual way of serving these dumplings is to pop some herbs like mint or coriander and chilli onto a lettuce leaf

Wrap up into a cute little parcel, and serve with some sauce to dunk them in. This was a much nicer way of eating them, the lettuce gave a nice crunch as well as giving your teeth something to grip onto!

Nice sweet filling, a soft crunch of the nuts, chewy soft dumping then the crisp lettuce leaf all added up to a lovely lunch indeed. My family loved them, but I don't think I'd serve them to quite young children as you really do need to chew these well :)

So My Dear Readers, what's your favourite type of dumpling, and where do you go to get it?

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Gluten Free Chinese Dumplings

We love Yum Cha.









Except that in our house we call it Yummy Cha actually.


But it can be so hard to find some lovely little dumplings that suit gluten free eating. I'm very lucky to have a great little place nearby that caters for me so very well. We go every couple of weeks and any problems I've had I put down to lack-of-vigilance on my part, not to any slackness from our favourite restaurant. The staff know our dishes and in case of problems I have little cards with 'No Wheat' written in Chinese that I keep in my wallet.

Eating out is always a tricky issue with food InTolerances, and I understand how many of my friends prefer not to roll the dice with nasty symptoms, but I say Buyer Beware and as always, you eat at your own risk. I choose in this case to risk it!

For those of you, Dear Readers, who are more sensitive or more sensible than I am, I recently found a great recipe for gluten free dumpling wrappers in a magazine page ad for Kikkoman Soy Sauce.

Did you know that Kikkoman now make a really nice gluten free soy sauce too? Made with soybeans, rice, salt and water, it tastes just like the 'real' thing too!

The dumpling recipe is actually for gyozas, but I turned mine into little dumplings and rice rolls instead. I found the best results with steaming, boiling the little lovelies mushed them up too much. The result of steaming is a lovely slippery texture, just like the stuffed rice rolls at yum cha, yummy!

Gluten free Dumplings

300gr cooked peeled Taro
1 Tb Salt
3 tsp gluten free Baking Powder
1kg pkt Glutinous Rice Flour
2 tb oil
500ml Water

I steamed my Taro to avoid it becoming soggy and gluggy. Then let it cool.

Process taro with the salt and baking powder

With the motor running, add the oil, a little water and a little flour. Continue like this until it's all used and the mixture forms a dough.

Turn out and knead for a few minutes until nice and smooth. Rest for about half an hour.

While it's resting, make a yummy filling for your dumplings:

300gr Pork Mince
300gr Chicken Mince
1/2 cup finelychopped Water Chestnuts
1/2 cup finely chopped Silverbeet from my garden
1/4 cup finely chopped chives
Big Tablespoon minced Garlic
Big tablespoon minced Ginger
1 Tbsp gluten free Soy Sauce
1 tsp Sesame Oil
2 tsp Chinese Cooking Wine
1 finely chopped Hot Chilli

Combine all the ingredients for the filling, and mix around thoroughly. The best way is with your hands, it keeps the texture much better this way. Squish, squish, squish!

Ready To Roll:

Roll out the dumpling dough nice and thin, about 2mm thick, on some baking paper. Dust with a bit more rice flour if needed. Then cut to the desired size with a scone or cookie cutter.

Place a small spoonful of meat filling on one half of the round, leaving a bit of a clear border, then wet the inside edge slightly with a wet finger and fold in half. Pinch the edges firmly.

Place on some more baking paper while you make enough little dumplings to fill your steamer.

Place your dumplings in a lined steamer basket over vigorously boiling water, and steam until just cooked through. My steamer took about 10 minutes, but it was a bit bigger than the pot so wasn't as efficient. The outside should be opaque and nice and firm, but with a bit of spring to it.

Serve your little lovelies with Kikkoman Dipping Sauce for a bit more yumminess

Dipping Sauce

1/3 cup Kikkoman gluten free soy sauce
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp sesame oil
1 finely chopped small chilli
Splash of water to dilute saltiness to taste

Mix all ingredients together and allow to sit while cooking the dumplings so flavour develops

As you can see Dear Readers, my arms gave out about halfway through making dumplings, so I turned them into lovely steamed rice rolls. I loved them just as much this way, and actually thought they looked prettier with the filling showing just a little at the ends. It's up to you, present them as you will, just be happy in the yummiest of gluten free yum cha around!

So Dear Readers, which way do you think looks the nicest, and do you enjoy Yum Cha too?








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