Seared Pork & Ginger Dumplings with Mapo Sauce

So for a while now I've been toying around with making some chilli oil dumplings. I love that peppery warmth that comes from chilli oil that coats your tongue in a delicious heat. But i also wanted to try something a little bit new, not the stock standard chilli oil dumplings. How to take it up a notch? Add Mapo!

I was surprised how well this dish worked; i would make a very impressive plate at a one of those trendy new small plate bars. The freshness inside the dumpling (with the ginger and water chestnuts) does not get tainted by the mapo and there are two distinct flavours happening here.

Mars Bar Steamed Buns

o I've been dwelling on creating a different type of bao for a while now... trying to make my own twist of the epitome of steamed buns, the char siu bao that is obligatory at any number of yum cha establishments. The fluffy bun with the salty sweet pork, mmm, so delicious! But i was looking for something a little more refined, a little more savory, a little more, complex...

So how did i end up at mars bar steamed buns! I was so set on making bao using a filling i'd normally use in sang choy bao, with complex textures of crisp, crunchy, soft, etc, but then i was looking over a fish and chip shop menu and saw it there, my muse... the deep fried mars bar! Like a lightning bolt to the brain my synapses lit up at once and rather than funneling the energy into some sort of craving-induced coma it exposed itself as an idea - mars bar bao! And so it began.

The result was mixed. The Snickers bao i made first didn't carry that unctuous gooey deliciousness i wanted. But the mars bars, with their cavalier disregard for the nut, had the right texture. The buns themselves were fluffy but not sweet enough, so for the recipe below i've doubled the sugar content in the bun.

Shu Mai

I haven't been to proper yum cha in soooooo long. And despite lots of delicious food at the Langham buffet i went to this week (chocolate Naan anyone?), the shu mai were mushy and flavourless. Remedy: make my own!

To be honest, one might say i've never had much luck making dumplings. One new year i made pot stickers which stuck irrevocably to the pot, and a mushy, squishy shu mai, and have made xiao long bao that, despite being tasty, looked and had a texture more akin to steamed pork roll. Since then i've learnt that shu mai filling should never see the inside of your food processor! And with these shu mai, i didnt have to worry about getting the dumpling skin right.