How to Make 8 Types of Dim Sum with Chef Chris Cheung

the har gao dumpling dumpling hagau dough is one of the more difficult doughs to work with it's made with three different type of starches and no flour which makes it a more complicated process to work with first thing i'm going to do is roll it out into a log then we're going to cut the nuggets nuggets are about nuggets are about tip of the thumb size one side of the cleaver needs to have a little bit of oil on it so the dough lets go of the cleaver this is an old school traditional technique of making hog out skins and basically you're taking this

special cleaver and smooshing the nugget until it's a very thin circle for each hagao you're adding a little over a tablespoon of filling keep your filling cold it makes dumpling folding a lot easier then the technique is you're folding the wrapper over the filling making pleats and then sealing the dumpling together dumpling together for dim sum chefs many know dozens of different folds and different pleats and each one goes with a different style of dumpling haagow kind of has its own style where the pleats are made and then it's fanned out a little

bit at the end that's how it's presented in the steamer basket so the shumai is one of the pillars of the dim sum menu is a open-faced dumpling and it's wrapped with a really thin skin and simply steam the egg white will provide the pork with a little bit of a lighter texture when you bite into it the egg white to soft peak takes about four minutes to whip next i'm gonna mix my ginger everybody has their technique to getting the skin off the ginger whether it's from a knife from a dull spoon i don't like the dull spoon process because it ruins the fibers

on the outside and it makes the ginger a little bit soft this is a raw water chestnut it'll cook with the rest of the dumpling ingredients when it steams so the water chestnut adds a textural difference to the meat and the dumpling and it adds a little bit of a crunch what it also does is it provides little pathways pathways for the juices inside the meat to flow and that makes for a tastier dumpling so the shumai is primarily pork and you're adding the aromatics sparingly for for flavor and for texture this is a mixture of ground pork belly and ground

pork pot so now i'm adding msg msg the corn starch the corn starch oyster sauce oyster sauce and soy sauce and before i start mixing i'm going to add the egg whites mixing this until it's fully incorporated and you want all the air out of it now i'm going to wrap the shumai so the first thing i'm going to do is add a little bit of water to the perimeter of the wrappers this is a open open-faced dumpling but if you add a little water it will stick to the meat and not fall apart when you eat them after steaming chew my dumplings are the easiest to fold

because you don't need any pretty pleats but it is a nice way to introduce yourself on how dumpling skins form around the ground meat that you're using pinch of pleat around each side of the dumpling and then just squeeze it together so the air comes out of the filling filling there's no rule to how many pleats you get anywhere from five to seven is fine roast pork is the staple of chinese barbecue it can't be reused the next day so it found its way into things like roast pork fried rice roast pork loaming and roast pork buns fermented black bean adds

salt savoriness and just a little bit of sweetness with roast pork you never want to cut it too thin the thinner you cut barbecue the drier it becomes however you also want to make sure that it's cut small enough to fold into the bun nicely so first thing we're going to add is the chili paste chili paste a little bit of pork broth poison sauce poison sauce sugar and salt sugar and salt the thing you want to watch out for is you don't want it too saucy or else it will interfere with the bun we are now going to fold our roast pork bun bun this is this is a

little different than our other dumplings this bun is made with sourdough with sourdough same thing we're gonna take a log of the dough cut our nuggets make many dumplings and buns on the dim sum menu you need a special rolling pin the one i'm using here is a very thin wooden rolling pin and you need it to make the circles for your dumplings we're not adding that much filling we're just adding enough filling so you can comfortably wrap the bun so with this particular pleat we are sealing the dumplings at the top this twist is different than the other

styles of dumpling folding and it's made a lot for buns you'll see variations of this in soup dumplings as well dumplings as well when you steam the dumpling with this fold the steam will make the bun kind of pop out at the top these are the wrap roast pork buns and so now i'm going to start making the filling for the spring roll so these are shiitake mushrooms these mushrooms have been dried and then we rehydrate them in a little bit of water overnight in chinese cuisine we dry a lot of mushrooms shiitake mushrooms are very common however there is a

grating system and they can get very expensive next we're just going to thinly slice some onion i'm going to slice these carrots and it's a lot easier with the big cleaver for the spring roll filling i like to keep the integrity of the vegetables nice even strips tend to do that this is red cabbage provides a nice crunch and a beautiful color to the filling love the slightly butteriness of the napa cabbage napa cabbage the spring roll originated from primarily shanghai primarily shanghai it's part of the spring festival it's not an original part of the

dim sum menu but any dim sum house in new york you're going to find it on the menu so the spring roll fillings a little bit different here we are going to cook the vegetables before we roll our spring sprinkles first thing we're going to do is lightly saute our ginger and garlic we're just looking to sweat it until it becomes translucent becomes translucent then we're adding our onions cabbages mushrooms and letting that cook down to the first wilt quilt now that the vegetables have cooked down a bit i'm going to add the shaoxing wine so i like to add

the water that we reconstituted the mushrooms with it adds a lot of great flavor and savoriness and then we're going to add some oyster sauce sauce i'm just gonna add a little bit more oil and some salt and some salt because you fill a wrapper and then deep fry this if the filling is too wet you may get some explosions while cooking take the filling put it in a perforated container top it with some plastic wrap put a weight over it and then let the liquid drain out of the filling overnight overnight so here we're going to wrap our spring roll cut the

filling down just a little bit so it's easy to roll up and you're going to see these scissors in every chinese kitchen chinese kitchen basically you want to place your filling below the middle line and i'm going to use a little slurry made with flour and water just to make sure these stay sealed and then and then fold the two corners over and then just roll up it's very important to do it this way because you will get your wrapper fully tight over the filling and that will prevent any explosions going forward dim sum menus are traditionally known for

their dumplings however pot stickers made their way onto the dim sum menu from places like beijing and shanghai first i'm going to slice some scallion rounds then we're going to chop some fermented black bean then we're going to peel and mince our water chestnuts then we're going to add our ground pork and then our ginger and garlic you add some soy sauce with this you're mixing so all the ingredients are fully together and there's no air in the filling we have our pot sticker dough that's been rested and we're going to make our log and cut our nuggets

then i'm going to flower the surface using my hands to get the shape as closest to a circle so i can get a little bit of a head start so this technique is your standard making a pretty pleated dumpling style we'll take the filling put it in the dumpling wrapper dumpling wrapper fold the dumpling like a taco and then we're going to push the edge of the wrapper into pleats all along the front side and then seal it and then just shape our dumpling and squeeze the air out here's the spring roll and it's simply deep fried deep fried to achieve a perfect

golden crispy spring roll have clean hot oil set at about 325 degrees and then drop your spring rolls into that oil i'm gonna keep it moving inside the oil to make sure i get a crispy wrapper all around so the filling in the spring roll is already pre-cooked so you're looking for hot throughout and a crispy skin here we're going to steam our dumplings and pan fry our pot stickers we're going to start with our roast pork bun for these i'm going to add a little bit of oil to the bottom of the steamer basket so it doesn't stick so i've added a couple of

levels to make sure that the water doesn't hit the bottom of whatever i'm cooking i'm cooking and you can steam them all in the same time because you will be using bamboo steamer baskets that stack on top of each other each other for the hog owl i'm going to add a little bit of oil to the bottom of the steamer basket so it doesn't stick after you cook them you cook them ideally you want to leave a little bit of daylight between each dumpling shumai i've added a little oil to the bottom of the basket as well six minutes steam on each one so while those

are steaming i am going to cook some pot stickers i added a little bit of oil to a hot pan so there's a legend about how the pot sticker was originally made the royal chef was making dumplings for the emperor but as he started to cook the dumplings he realized that he forgot to get the sauce get the sauce he went downstairs and when he came back up and the water boiled out of the pot and the dumplings were sticking to the bottom of the pot he had no choice but to scrape the dumplings off the bottom of the pan of the pan and put them on a plate with the

sauce and serve them to the emperor the emperor wound up loving the dumplings so much that it became a regular dish now i'm going to present our steamed dumplings next i'm going to braise some chicken feet feet i believe that most of the best cuisines in the world originated from peasant cuisine in instances of sustainability you want to use every part of the animal that you're going to eat it just turns out that chicken feet tastes good first i'm going to flash fry them i have my oil to about 340. you're going to to have the oil a little hotter than

normal because it's a flash fry not a deep fry i would suggest to somebody who is hesitant of eating chicken feet to expect a bite that is different than what you used to but still very savory and very good so for the braise we're going to add some ginger and garlic we're adding a little bit of broth some wine some wine some oyster sauce some oyster sauce some of your fermented rice and the fermentation of the rice adds a great tang to whatever you're cooking with we're going to add some soy sauce some sugar and a little bit of chili we are not making

this spicy the chili is added for a little bit of the balance of flavor this needs to braise to make the chicken feet soft enough to eat i'm going to leave this on a very low simmer for a little over an hour going to thicken it up with a little bit of a corn starch larry you're going to add about a tablespoon of slurry per two cups of broth and i'm gonna bring it back to a boil just so i could get the right consistency the braising liquid is actually your sauce for the chicken feet chicken feet are plated i'm just going to add some scones now we're going

to make some black bean clams clams it's basically freshly sauteed clams with a black bean garlic sauce black bean garlic sauce is one of the more famous sauces that comes out of a chinese kitchen chinese kitchen so first i'm going to take this red bell pepper and break it down and so we're just getting the insides of the bell pepper cut off and then we're going to cut it into a small dice and then for our scallions just slice them up rather thin and now we get to heat our pan i'm looking for medium heat on the pan because you're going to enter aromatics

first if the heat is too high they tend to burn before you add the rest of your ingredients ingredients black bean clams are really popular in the dim sum experience a lot of times they'll bring the card over to you and cook the clams in a mini wok on the cart then we're going to add the liquids including the broth and the wine that's going to create the steam for the clams and now we're going to cover and cook so you're going to leave these covered until the clams open four to five minutes if they don't open don't eat them so once the clams have all

opened then you can start plating the dish i'm going to add a little bit of the sauce over the top top it with some scallions and you're ready and here we're going to bake our danta a custard tart staple on the dim sum menu part of many of the coffee shop menus along many chinatown streets and a favorite treat for us as kids so i'm cutting my dough down using my rolling pin again i'm going to roll the dough out into a circle and then i'm going to form it into the shell the normal pastry for the don tot can be flaky or it can be mealy it comes in a lot of

different styles we're going to use a basic pie dough here we've docked our dough and we're just going to egg wash it a little bit so i'm going to put my pastry in the oven for just a minute now i'm going to make the custard make the custard we're adding some cream we're gonna use about nine eggs to a cup of cream of cream add some sugar to the cream and the eggs i'm gonna bring up the temperature on the cream and then temper it into the eggs you want the cream just as it hits the simmer and then just wait a second for it to come just below that whip

your eggs slightly as you add your cream i'm going to add a tiny bit of custard to the bottom of the tart and put them back in the oven for just a few minutes to protect the bottom from soaking now i'm going to add the rest of the custard and then i'm going to throw them back in the oven for about four to five minutes i'm going to let these cool for a few minutes to set the custard here is all the dim sum that i've cooked for you today and no dim sum meal would be complete without tea