Happy New Year

Made har gow for the first time ever. We've done a decent amount of dim sum dishes from scratch but this wrapper has eluded us - it's not sold frozen and it's surprisingly hard to find the wheat starch necessary for the dough. But we finally got to try making it, and it's definitely on the more challenging end of things to do in the kitchen.

The starch needs to be "cooked" with boiling water to get it to the right consistency. Too cold and the dough won't come together. First batch ended up a sticky mess, second batch was much more pliable and easy to work with. Filling is a simple one of shrimp, bamboo shoot, and white pepper as a main flavoring. (More traditional filling would include chunks of fatback but we have a pescetarian coming over.)

My pleating sucks but they're tasty!