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The Dumpling 100 · make it at home

Har gow (crystal shrimp dumplings)

1 hr 15 min · About 20 dumplings, 4 people

The dim sum test: a translucent, chewy wheat-starch wrapper around a snappy whole-shrimp filling. Hot water is the trick that makes the dough work.

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The real one

You need

• For the filling: 300 g (2/3 lb) raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 30 g (2 tbsp) pork fat or bacon fat, finely diced (optional but classic)
• 30 g (1/4 cup) bamboo shoots, finely diced
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp white pepper
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• For the wrappers: 100 g (3/4 cup) wheat starch (not wheat flour)
• 40 g (1/3 cup) tapioca starch, plus more for dusting
• 160 ml (2/3 cup) just-boiled water
• 2 tsp lard or neutral oil
• To serve: soy sauce and chili oil

How to make it

1. Make the filling (10 min): Pat the shrimp very dry. Chop half into a rough paste and the other half into pea-size pieces. Mix with the pork fat, bamboo shoots, cornstarch, salt, sugar, pepper and sesame oil, stirring hard in one direction for 1 minute until springy. Chill 15 minutes.
2. Make the dough (5 min): Whisk wheat starch and tapioca starch in a bowl. Pour in the just-boiled water all at once and stir fast with chopsticks; the starch cooks on contact. Cover 2 minutes, then add the lard and knead on a tapioca-dusted board until smooth and glossy. Keep it covered with a damp towel; it dries in minutes.
3. Roll (15 min): Roll a third of the dough into a rope and cut into 6 to 7 pieces, about 10 g each. Press each flat with the side of an oiled cleaver (or a tortilla press lined with oiled plastic) into a 7 cm (2 3/4 in) circle.
4. Fill and pleat (25 min): Put a heaping teaspoon of filling in the center. Fold the wrapper in half over it; on the back edge, make 8 to 10 small pleats pressing each onto the smooth front edge, curving it into a crescent. Pinch the top shut.
5. Steam (6 min): Set on oiled parchment in a bamboo steamer, 2 cm apart. Steam over boiling water for 6 minutes until the wrappers turn clear and you can see pink shrimp through them.
6. Serve (right away): Har gow toughen as they cool, so eat them hot with soy and a little chili oil.

Tips

• Wheat starch is sold in Asian groceries, often labeled 'wheat starch' or 'tang mian'. Flour won't work.
• If the dough cracks when you fold it, it's too dry: knead in a few drops of hot water.

Chef Amazing's own home version of har gow, in our words; not any restaurant's recipe.