Adventures with Kake

[Image: Three long, deep-fried, rice-paper-wrapped cylinders sitting on a white paper doily on a white plate. The pink-orange colour of the prawn filling is visible through the wrapper.]

I have no recipe to offer you for today's dim sum dish. I tried to find one in my cookery books and on the internet, and failed on both counts. So instead, have a photo of it (above), and an encouragement to order it in restaurants!

Paper-wrapped prawns (紙包蝦/zhǐ bāo xiā) can be found in the "fried" section of the dim sum menu. The English name and Chinese name match up quite simply: 紙 (zhǐ) is paper, 包 (bāo) means "package" or "to wrap", and 蝦 (xiā) are prawns. The paper here is rice paper — not the very thin, shiny stuff that Brits of a certain age may remember purchasing from sweetshops, but the sort of thing used to wrap Vietnamese spring rolls.

You may also see these listed as 威化紙包蝦 (wēi huà zhǐ bāo xiā). Don't try to extract meaning from the characters 威 and 化, since this is another phonetic Cantonese transliteration ("wai faa") of an English word, "wafer" in this case, referring to the texture of the deep-fried rice paper wrappers.

[Image: Three deep-fried spring rolls sitting on a white doily on a white plate, garnished with a sprig of parsley. The skins of the rolls are blistered from the frying process.]

Although as I mentioned earlier this week dim sum is a Cantonese tradition, it has a fair number of influences from other cuisines, both Chinese and non-Chinese. Grilled pork dumplings/potstickers (鍋貼/guō tiē), for example, are actually from north China (whereas Cantonese cuisine originates from Guangdong province in the south), which is why they're often referred to in English as "Peking dumplings". Similarly, soup dumplings/xiao long bao (小籠包/xiǎo lóng bāo) originate from the Shanghai area.

Today I'm posting about one of those influences that comes from outside China — Vietnamese-style spring rolls, or 越式炸春卷 (yuè shì zhà chūn juǎn). "Vietnam" is 越南 (yuè nán) in Chinese, and 式 (shì) means "style", so 越式 is "Vietnamese-style". 炸 (zhà) is "deep-fried", 春 (chūn) is "spring", and 卷 (juǎn) is "roll".

One difference from Cantonese spring rolls is the wrapper — Vietnamese spring rolls are wrapped in rice paper skins, which is what makes the outsides blistered rather than smooth. The filling is also different, being a mixture of minced pork and prawns, shredded vegetables, and bean thread noodles (粉絲/fěn sī). Finally, the recipes I've seen tend to use black pepper rather than the white pepper that's more common in Chinese cuisine, though I don't know whether this is original to Vietnam or an adaptation to Western kitchens.

The owner of Vinh Phat once told me that within Vietnamese cuisine, the skins used for deep-fried spring rolls are not the same as the ones used for fresh summer rolls, but I'm not sure exactly what the difference is — I was a bit short of time so didn't press him further. In any case, Viet World Kitchen has some tips on choosing rice paper.

When I made these, I mostly followed the Rasa Malaysia recipe, but taking hints from the method of another recipe I found on vietnam.com — I made sure to mix the filling well, smooshing it down with the spoon I was using (the noodles didn't seem to mind the smooshing, but I put them in towards the end anyway), and I also set it aside in the fridge for half an hour before rolling.

Other changes I made: I wanted to add some wood ears as suggested in the vietnam.com recipe but I couldn't find them in the mass of stuff that got shoved in my pantry after my recent house move, so I used dried shiitakes instead. Also, I used finely-chopped water chestnuts instead of carrots, since I had some to use up. I didn't have crabmeat, so I used an extra ounce of minced prawns instead.

While my filling turned out great, the end result was not really a success. My wrappers almost all came apart during frying, even though I followed the advice of vietnam.com to make sure that the fold of the roll touches the oil first to stop it unravelling. I also followed the advice of both sources to use a fairly low heat to fry the rolls — vietnam.com says the frying time should be about 15 minutes, and I tried to stick to this, but it still didn't help. The best results came from the rolls that I didn't have time to fry on the day of making and hence let sit in the fridge for a couple of days, but even then only two of the three made it through without coming apart.

I will definitely be trying this again, though, perhaps with a different brand of wrapper, and will report back if I ever get them to work!

[Image: Three cha siu bao in a steamer basket — soft, white, fluffy, slightly sweet steamed buns filled with barbecued pork. The tops of the buns are "smiling" to show the filling.]

Cha siu bao (叉燒包/chā shāo bāo) are probably familiar to most people who've ever been out for dim sum. I'd been intending to cover them during this year's dim sum month (which will again be in August), but since this week's character post was on 包/bāo/bun, they were the obvious choice for today's post.

I didn't want to get too complicated for my first attempt at these, so I decided to buy the 叉燒 instead of making it myself[see footnote]. Many Cantonese restaurants will sell you a chunk of cha siu to take away, at a reasonable price; it's best to go around lunchtime, as it's fresher then. Look for somewhere that has roast meats hanging up in the window, and ask to have your cha siu whole rather than cut up, so it doesn't dry out on the way home. If you do want to make your own, check out sung's cha siu recipe.

To turn my purchased chunk of 叉燒 into 包 filling, I followed Sue-On's instructions to dice it and then stirfry it with hoisin sauce and oyster sauce, before adding chicken stock and thickening it with cornflour slurry (the Tigers & Strawberries post linked below has a more complex recipe). I have to confess that, not being the greatest fan of 叉燒包, I hadn't eaten one in recent memory, so I wasn't entirely sure what flavour I was going for here. Instead, I aimed to get a decent amount of sauce that was thick enough to be folded up in a dough wrapper without leaking everywhere, but that wasn't too stodgy. I did make one mistake, in that I didn't dice the meat quite finely enough. I left this filling to cool completely before filling my buns.

The other important component is the bread dough. There are two main schools of thought on this: yeast-raised, or non-yeast-raised, though many yeast-raised doughs, such as the one from Tigers & Strawberries, also incorporate some baking powder for extra lift. There's another yeast-raised dough posted by Tepee on eGullet; note though that I haven't tried either of these yet, since I decided to go for a non-yeast option.

Non-yeast-raised doughs might use baking powder or ammonium bicarbonate as the raising agent. Some are kneaded and then left for 20-30 minutes to relax the gluten, while others are used straight away. Some people use water for the liquid, others use milk.

In the end, I tried two ways of making the dough; the boxed mix described below, and the dough recipe from Sue-On's bao page linked above. Sadly the latter simply didn't work for me — I thought all along that the proportions looked off, so I measured carefully and followed the instructions to the letter, but even using the most generous conversion I could find (1 cup flour = 5 oz weight), I still ended up with a batter rather than a dough, so I chucked it in the bin and had toast instead.

The boxed mix was a serendipitous discovery. I read online that Vietnamese "banh bao flour" was a good flour to use, so I went to our local Vietnamese supermarket and asked for some. The owner pointed me at a box of Thai "salapao mix" (photo of salapao mix box), which contained flour, sugar, and raising agents. I thought this was worth a go, so I bought some. The dough turned out quite soft, which surprised me, since according to the Tigers & Strawberries recipe linked above, the dough should be stiff, but I figured this was probably just a difference between the yeast-raised and non-yeast-raised versions, and indeed it was fine in the end.

Most recipes ask you to form the dough into a roll and then cut it into however many pieces it's meant to make — I prefer to weigh it, work out how much each one should weigh, and then pull off pieces and check the weight, but then I like doing long division, so just use whatever method suits you :) Sue-On's post, linked above, mentions using a tortilla press to make the flat circles, but I just rolled them out with a rolling pin.

For steaming, it's best to use a steamer with a bamboo lid, since it absorbs the condensation better than a metal lid does, and you don't really want condensation dropping back onto your 包. Note that they do get quite a lot bigger when you steam them, so make sure to leave plenty of room between them when you put them in the steamer.

To stop the 包 sticking to the base of the steamer, I used these circles of parchment paper stuff that I bought from the Chinese supermarket; they're cut to a standard size, and they have holes in them to let the steam through. They worked very well, no sticking at all. I've read that you can also use lettuce leaves, though these can make the bases of the 包 a bit soggy; I've also read that if you don't mind having to peel the paper off the buns afterwards, waxed paper works OK.

A number of sources on the internet suggest that adding some white vinegar to the steaming water will eliminate any "off" colours or smells, but I have no idea if this is true, nor what the mechanism might be. Similarly, many sources state that the 包 should be steamed over as high as heat as possible to get them really fluffy and to get the characteristic "cracked" or "smiling" top — I certainly noticed that the ones in the lower tier of my steamer (i.e. closer to the fresh steam) were smiling more than the ones in the upper tier. Finally, according to Tepee on eGullet, you should avoid overcooking (12-15 minutes is a good time), and uncover your 包 as quickly as possible once they've finished steaming, making sure not to let any condensation fall on them.

If you have leftover 包, let them cool down, then freeze them. Reheat by steaming from frozen for 10-15 minutes.

Footnote: [0] Since I was planning to be in central London anyway, I googled for where to buy cha siu in london chinatown and was amused to see a post by sung come up as the top hit. In his post, he recommended Hung's on Wardour Street, so I decided to go there, but was thwarted by an earlier appointment over-running; however, we met up for dinner the next evening so I got to wander along Gerrard Street with him afterwards peering in all the windows to select the best-looking cha siu for me!

Fittingly, the final dim sum dish I'm posting about this month is a dessert — 馬來糕, which is a steamed sponge cake. The pinyin is mǎ lái gāo, the Cantonese is ma lai goh, and the English translations I've seen include "sweet sponge cake", "Malaysian sponge cake", and simply "sponge cake". On dim sum menus, this sometimes appears in the steamed section and sometimes in the dessert section.

The literal translation of 馬來糕 is "Malaysian cake" — 馬來 (mǎ lái) is the "Malaysian" part, and as mentioned in my post on 蘿蔔糕/luó bo gāo/loh bak goh/radish cake, 糕 (gāo) refers to some kind of cake. I'm not really sure what the Malaysian connection is, but this is what it's called!

You may see different spellings — 馬拉糕 (mǎ lā gāo) seems to be quite common on the menus I've seen. I'm not sure whether this is best described as a spelling mistake or a spelling variant though. I've also seen it on menus as 牛油馬來糕 (niú yóu mǎ lái gāo), which I think refers to the use of butter as the fat in the cake (牛油 literally means "cow oil"). Another one I've seen is 吉士馬來糕 (jí shì mǎ lái gāo), which I have no idea of the meaning of Carolyn J Phillips tells me refers to the custard powder (吉士粉/jí shì fěn)^[1] that forms part of the recipe.

To make this at home, check out Sunflower's ma lai goh recipe. I must admit that I haven't quite got this recipe to work yet. The first time I tried it, I made the full recipe and it never set properly, even when I steamed it for half as long again as the recipe said to. The second time I made half-quantities, which worked better, though it could still have done with a little more steaming and it was nowhere near as light as the one pictured at the top of this post.

I had the one in the picture at Harbour City in London Chinatown, where it was listed on the menu as 牛油馬來糕 — perhaps the use of butter instead of oil had something to do with the lightness, though I would have thought this would affect the flavour more than the texture. Perhaps I simply didn't whisk mine enough.

Edit, June 2011: It's worth also checking out Carolyn J Phillips' 馬來糕 recipe.

I'm not normally a fan of pastry, but I'll make an exception for certain Chinese pastries, particularly these light, deep-fried puffs filled with shredded daikon. The Chinese name is 蘿蔔絲酥餅 (luó bo sī sū bǐng), though you might also see this abbreviated as 蘿蔔酥 (luó bo sū). 蘿蔔（luó bo) is daikon/mooli/Chinese radish (though as discussed before, the term also covers a few other root vegetables), 絲 (sī) means "shredded" (referring to the 蘿蔔), 酥 (sū) means "crispy" (referring to the pastry), and 餅 (bǐng) denotes a biscuit/cake sorta thing.

English translations I've seen for 蘿蔔絲酥餅 include "deep fried turnip puff pastry", "crispy turnip puff pastry", "shredded turnip puff pastry", "crispy shredded turnip", and, slightly bizarrely, "mooli croissant". They're sometimes available in vegetarian versions (for example at Shanghai Blues in London), but if they're not explicitly marked as vegetarian, there may be lard in the pastry and/or pork mince in the filling.

Like European puff pastry, the pastry used to make 蘿蔔絲酥餅 consists of multiple layers which separate and flake up on cooking. However, instead of the layers being separated by pats of butter, they're separated by a rich, lard-heavy dough — you essentially make two doughs, one including water and one not, and layer them up, then fold and reroll a number of times to increase the number of layers. Another difference is that the folding process aims to expose the edges of the dough layers, so when the pastries are cooked they make a pretty pattern as shown in the photograph above (which was taken at Gerrard's Corner in London Chinatown).

I looked at a few different recipes when making these: Sunflower's recipe, Lily Ng's recipe, and two Red Cook recipes for beet puffs and durian puffs. All of these make different quantities and use different amounts of flour, water, and fat — and Sunflower's recipe substitutes oil for part of the lard, while Lily's recipe adds an egg to the water pastry. I thought the best way to figure out what to do was to work out the ratios of the ingredients by weight, and compare these ratios between the recipes.

I eventually settled on a fat:flour:water ratio of 30g:100g:40g for the water pastry and a fat:flour ratio of 60g:100g for the lard cake — this fitted pretty closely to Sunflower's and Lily's recipes (which were given in weights), and also to one of the Red Cook recipes (the beet puff ratios were very different to the other three, and I do wonder if the use of volume measurements may have led to inaccuracies). I made one batch using all lard, and one batch using Sunflower's suggestion of replacing some of the lard with oil. The eventual flavour wasn't noticeably affected by the lesser quantity of lard.

Regarding methods, there seem to be two main options: either treat the pastry as a whole, and repeatedly fold and roll the two doughs together before cutting into pieces against the layers (Lily's recipe), or divide each dough into portions and combine them individually (the other three recipes). I tried both, using Lily's method with the all-lard dough and the other method (as described by Sunflower) with the lard-oil dough. I found that Lily's method was much less faff, but the other method produced better results for me, with the flaky strips more apparent. I don't know how much of this was down to the difference in dough composition and how much to the difference in method. (Edit, April 2011: here's an illustrated guide to different folding methods.)

Finally, there are also two options for cooking the things — bake them at 200°C (400°F) for around 20 minutes, or deep-fry them. I cooked half of each batch with each method. Unsurprisingly, the deep-fried ones were flakier while the baked ones were more solid. The all-lard baked ones ended up lighter in colour than the lard-plus-oil baked ones, but that might have been partly because they went in colder, due to the chilling of the dough. The all-lard fried ones were darker, denser, and less flaky than the lard-plus-oil fried ones, but that might have been partly or entirely because I fried them second and the oil was hotter and already had bits in (which can speed up browning).

The main mistake I made was in not putting enough filling in — I was worried that they'd come apart, but in the end only one or two of them leaked slightly. Next time I'll roll the pastry thinner and add more filling.

This photo is a CC-licensed derivative work of a photo by cshan.

Next in my dim sum series — crispy roast pork belly. Although strictly speaking this is not a dim sum dish, it's been part of so many of my dim sum lunches that I sort of had to include it. Like dim sum, it's (as far as I know) a Cantonese speciality, and (at least in London) is often available at restaurants offering dim sum.

I've seen a number of transliterations for this — siu yuk, siu youk, siew yoke. The Chinese characters are 燒肉 (shāo ròu in Mandarin), which simply means "roast meat" — remember, the default meat in most Chinese cuisines is pork, so wherever you see 肉 without further qualification, it almost certainly means pork. Don't confuse 燒肉 with 紅燒肉/hóng shāo ròu! It's completely different.

On a menu, this might also appear as 脆皮燒肉 (cuì pí shāo ròu) — the 脆皮 part means "crispy skin". This makes a lot of sense, since perhaps the most important aspect of siu yuk is the crispy, savoury crackling. If you're making this at home, you really do need to make sure that the skin of the pork is cooked thoroughly all the way through to the meat, or your crackling will be chewy. I can personally recommend Charmaine Mok's method for this, which involves actually letting the crackling go far enough to burn, and then scraping off the charred parts with a serrated knife. It's also worth checking out Sunflower's hints on choosing the best piece of meat for the job.

When I made this, I used Charmaine's recipe and it worked out pretty well (though note that I think the 45 minutes cooking time is meant to be 45 minutes total, not 20 minutes in the oven plus 45 minutes under the grill — I took mine out in time to avoid the house filling with black smoke).

There's also extensive discussion on the eGullet thread about making 燒肉, including an interesting experiment on the best way to treat the skin to get a good crackling — the surprise winner was vodka. I haven't tried this yet, but I certainly will next time.

The second dish of my August dim sum series is 蘿蔔糕. This is not only a common dim sum dish, it's also a popular dish at Chinese New Year. The Mandarin pronunciation is luó bo gāo, but as with most dim sum items the more common pronunciation is the Cantonese one, lo bak goh.

蘿蔔 (luó bo) is daikon/mooli/Chinese radish, and 糕 (gāo) refers to some kind of cake (often a steamed one). In essence, 蘿蔔糕 is a steamed savoury cake/pudding made from grated daikon and rice flour, studded with little savoury tidbits such as Chinese sausage, dried prawns, and soaked dried mushrooms. When served at dim sum, this cake is sliced thickly and then grilled/panfried to get a nice browned crust on the two largest sides.

This often appears on menus as 臘味蘿蔔糕 (là wèi luó bo gāo), with the 臘味 part referring to the preserved meat included in the dish. The fact that the 蘿蔔糕 is panfried is not usually specified in the name, but the dish will most likely turn up in the "fried dim sum" section of the menu.

You can make your own lo bak goh at home; I haven't yet tried this, but I've bookmarked three plausible-looking recipes: one from Sunflower, one from Charmaine of Tasty Treats, and one from the Fresh From The Oven blog. (Sunflower also has another version which uses pumpkin instead of daikon, while Egg Wan offers a recipe including soaked puréed rice as well as rice flour.)

As Sunflower points out, the home-made version generally includes more of the "savoury tidbits", while the restaurant version is generally plainer. I am a fan of the restaurant version, since I prefer the soft, melting texture to not be impeded by too many chewy "bits". Some people like to have a few large visible chunks of daikon; others prefer all the daikon to be very finely grated so the texture is more homogenous. In this regard, I like both styles.

Happily, in London I can buy ready-to-fry restaurant-style 蘿蔔糕, from Lo's Noodle Factory in Chinatown. I find it pretty handy for breakfast, snacks, etc. I haven't yet tried freezing it, but I'm going to try freezing some next time (Lo's sells it in big blocks).

Be careful with the temperature you use to fry it — while you do want to achieve a nice browned crust, and while I have nothing against a burnt flavour in certain dishes, I think that the overall flavour of this particular dish is better if you keep it from burning even slightly. I would suggest a moderate heat for a longer time, rather than a high heat for a shorter time.

Another point is that if you want an evenly browned exterior then you should make a point of pressing the 蘿蔔糕 firmly down against the pan every so often as it cooks (just use a fish slice or spatula of some kind; don't worry about it sticking or breaking, since it's quite robust). I prefer to do this, though some people don't mind the browning being a bit uneven (as in the photo above).

Photo © Ewan-M, used under cc-by-sa.

As mentioned last week, I've declared August to be dim sum month! I'll be posting two of my favourite dim sum dishes each week this month, so today I thought I'd give a quick overview of what dim sum is all about. (Update, August 2011: here's a list of all the dim sum dishes I've ever posted about.)

Essentially, a dim sum meal consists of a number of small dishes of mostly savoury, mostly snack-like food, accompanied by large quantities of Chinese tea. In the UK, the term "dim sum" is used both for the type of food served, and for the occasion itself. Elsewhere, "yum cha" (literally "drinking tea") is a more common term for the act of going out to eat dim sum. A dim sum meal may last less than an hour — a good few of my dim sum outings have been on weekdays with the London Perl Mongers, so people need to get back to work — or it may be slow and leisurely. I think my longest dim sum lunch ever lasted just over three hours.

The Chinese characters for "dim sum" are 點心, which in Mandarin is diǎn xīn. However, dim sum is a solidly Cantonese tradition, and so the names of dim sum dishes, as well as the overall term "dim sum", are almost always transliterated with Cantonese spellings and pronunciations. (Note: I'll still be giving the Mandarin/pinyin for the dishes I post about this month, since many of the characters also appear on non-dim-sum menus.)

Dim sum is a breakfast/brunch/lunch meal, not only out of tradition, but also because it involves plentiful tea-drinking — evening drinks like wine and beer don't really go with this sort of food, and you probably wouldn't want all the caffeine from the tea in the evening. Like 火鍋/huǒ guō/hotpot, it's a highly social occasion, and the more people you have along the better. All dishes are shared, and there's no concept of starters or mains — it all arrives as and when it's ready, and it's fair game for whoever wants it. Some items (e.g. dumplings, pastries) come in multiples of three or four, and others (e.g. rice, chicken feet, tripe) come in a single bowl which you can serve yourself from as required.

Generally when I go out for dim sum, I find things go smoothest when one person puts themselves in charge of the ordering. Having one person in charge means you're more likely to get a nice spread of dishes — ideally, you'd have a mix of steamed, fried, and baked dishes, with a variety of ingredients. Often, instead of ordering by telling a member of staff what you want, you'll be given a paper menu with tickyboxes on which you check off the required items (photo). Some restaurants even still have dim sum carts, which can be fun — these are heated trollies filled with steamer baskets of dim sum, pushed around the dining room by various waitstaff (photo). As they pass, their proprietors will show you what they have, and you just tell them which items you want. This works nicely in terms of getting food on your table without any waiting, but the quality of the food can suffer as it sits around in the trolley. (Londoners: trolley dim sum is available at Chuen Cheng Ku and the New World.)

The most important thing to bear in mind when trying to find good dim sum is that while some restaurants will have a dedicated dim sum chef (or team of chefs) to make the dishes from scratch, other places just buy the items pre-made and frozen. If you see a Chinese menu that includes ten or fewer dim sum dishes, it's a pretty good bet that these aren't being made in-house [see footnote]. For proper dim sum, you want to look for places that have entirely separate dim sum menus with dozens of items — and bear in mind that it's usually different chefs in charge of dim sum and in charge of the regular menu, so a restaurant with indifferent à la carte may well do good dim sum, and vice versa. Take a look at Mr Noodles' post on old school dim sum for some more hints. Dim sum is normally only served until late afternoon; common hours in London are 11am-5pm.

One aspect of interest in the UK at the moment is the rise of the "dim sum chain" (example). Unlike the traditional dim sum places, these chains feature cocktails, snazzy decor, cool music, dim sum served right through to the end of the evening, and polite (even obsequious) service. Prices tend to be higher than in the old-school dim sum joints, and the menus can occasionally be frustrating if you're already familiar with the usual terms and would like to know exactly what something advertised as a "pork dumpling" actually is. Having said that, they're not all bad, and they can work well both as an accessible introduction to dim sum and as an occasional diversion for those tempted by the terribly aberrant practice of eating dim sum in the evening rather than at lunchtime :)

Speaking of aberrant practices, going out for dim sum on one's own can be frustrating, since it's hard to get a nice spread of dishes without being forced to over-order. If you're lucky, you'll find a place that offers a dim sum taster platter and does dim sum that's actually good. One such place is Pearl Liang, near Paddington Station in London; their nine-piece dim sum platter is shown below.

Footnote: [0] There are two exceptions to the "short dim sum menus are a bad sign" rule.

The first is if they mention hand-made dumplings. Chinese dumplings per se are not purely a dim sum item, though the non-dim-sum version is more rustic and less delicate. On most menus these are listed with the rice etc, but sometimes they're set aside in a "dim sum" section, presumably for marketing reasons. They aren't really dim sum, but they can be good, particularly if you see the character 手/shǒu/hand in the name, for example as 手工水餃/shǒu gōng shǔi jiǎo/"handmade boiled dumplings". Dumplings that are offered in large quantities (≥10) at cheap prices are likely to be hand-made in-house. Some menus may list both the pre-made frozen items and those made in-house (example — note the relatively expensive steamed items, in contrast to the 30p-per-piece pork/chicken "Chinese Dumplings").

The other exception is one mentioned in comments by Sung a.k.a. Mr Noodles — ultra-posh places (see his comment for more).