Har Gow
Crystal-skinned prawn dumplings with at least ten pleats, steamed until the wrapper turns translucent. The dish a dim sum kitchen is judged by.
Photograph credit: Funky Har Gow - Some cool dim sum at Sun Sui Wah - 1 by roland · CC0 1.0 · Flickr
The wrapper is wheat starch, not wheat flour, and the water must be at a full rolling boil when it goes in. Wheat starch has had the gluten washed out of it, so it cannot form a dough at all until the starch gelatinises, and water even slightly below boiling gives you a crumbly mixture that will not hold together. Work it while it is almost too hot to handle. The other rule is that half the prawn is chopped and half left whole, so the filling has both a paste that binds and pieces you can bite.
Questions About Har Gow
How long does Har Gow take to make?
1 hour of preparation and 10 minutes of cooking, plus 30 minutes of chilling, so allow 1 hour 40 minutes from start to finish. The recipe serves 6.
Photograph credit: homemade-har-gow by Andrea_Nguyen · CC BY 2.0 · Flickr
Har Gow: Step by Step
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Chop half the prawns to a rough paste and cut the other half into 1 cm pieces.
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Mix all the prawns with the pork fat, bamboo shoots, cornflour, salt, sugar, wine, sesame oil and white pepper. Refrigerate 30 minutes.
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Whisk the wheat starch, tapioca starch and salt together in a heatproof bowl.
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Pour the boiling water in all at once, stirring hard with a chopstick until it comes together in a lump.
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Cover 2 minutes, then add the oil and knead the hot dough on an oiled surface until smooth and glossy.
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Roll into a rope and cut into 24 pieces. Keep them covered — this dough dries in minutes.
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Flatten each piece with the oiled flat of a cleaver into a 8 cm round.
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Put a spoonful of filling in each, fold over and pleat one side only, pressing each pleat against the flat back.
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Set them on oiled baking paper in a steamer, well apart.
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Steam over rapidly boiling water 8 minutes, until the wrappers are translucent and the prawn is pink.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
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Worth Getting Right
- Wheat starch, not flour, and water at a full rolling boil.
- Work the dough hot and keep every piece covered.
- Half the prawn chopped, half in pieces.
Pairs Well With
Siu mai · Chilli oil · A pot of jasmine tea
Keeping and Reheating
Freeze uncooked on a tray for 2 months and steam from frozen, adding 3 minutes.
Har Gow Nutrition Facts
No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (some ingredient lines cannot be read). Why some recipes have none.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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