Wheat starch behaves nothing like flour. It has no gluten, so the dough is held together by gelatinised starch instead, which is why the water has to be boiling when it goes in and why the dough must be kept covered while you work. Get those two things right and the skins turn clear.
Cantonese · Dim sum
Har Gow With a Thin, Translucent Wheat Starch Wrapper
Shrimp and carrot wrapped in a dough of boiling water and wheat starch, then steamed for five minutes. The wrapper is the hard part, and it is mostly about temperature.
- Prep45 min
- Cook5 min
- Serves4
- LevelMedium
Ingredients
| 200 g | wheat starch , also sold as non-glutinous wheat flour |
| 70 g | potato starch , about a third of the wheat starch |
| 10 | raw shrimp , peeled and deveined |
| 1 | carrot , finely chopped |
| 1/3 bowl | ginger and scallion water , soaked, then strained |
| 2 tbsp | sesame oil |
| 1 tbsp | lard |
| 1/2 tsp | sugar |
| to taste | salt |
| about 200 ml | boiling water |
Method
- Soak sliced ginger and scallion in water for 15 minutes, then strain. This liquid seasons the filling without leaving flecks in it.
- Mix the wheat starch and potato starch in a bowl and pour the boiling water in while stirring. Stop when the mixture comes together as shaggy clumps.
- Tip it out once it is cool enough to handle and knead to a smooth, slightly tacky dough. Cover it with a cloth or cling film and let it rest for 10 minutes.
- Chop half the shrimp into small dice and cut the rest into larger pieces, so the filling has both texture and chunks.
- Mix the shrimp with the carrot, sugar, salt, lard, sesame oil and the ginger water, adding the water in several goes and stirring in one direction until the mixture turns sticky.
- Roll the dough into a log, cut it into pieces and press each piece into a thin round with the flat of a cleaver.
- Fill each round, pleat the edge and seal. Dust your fingers with raw wheat starch as you go, otherwise the pleats will not stick and the skins tear.
- Steam over boiling water for 5 minutes, then lift the lid and serve immediately.
Notes
- The water must be at a full boil when it hits the starch. Warm water gives a dough that cracks when rolled.
- Do not stack the dumplings before steaming, since the skins stick to each other and tear.
Ratios and technique checked against 奔赴美 on Douguo (家常虾饺). The method here is written by Stellaok and the illustration is ours; no text or photograph from the source is reproduced.