Weekend Recipe: A. Wong’s New Year Bean Curd Roll

What is bean curd skin, I hear you ask? Without sounding like too much of a geek, it is basically the skin that forms when you heat milk to just above 60°C. China has factories where this skin is carefully removed from the soya milk and hung up to dry before being packed, frozen and sent all across the world to wrap things in, as I’ve done here and on the following page. This is the first dim sum that I actually invented. You make your own judgement.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS

1 tablespoon preserved vegetables
1 tablespoon diced sautéed chestnut mushrooms
2 tablespoons blanched diced New Year cake (see below for information)
1 sheet of frozen bean curd skin 15 × 20cm, defrosted
beaten egg, for sealing
vegetable oil, for deep-frying
1 Cheung Fun Rice Sheet 15 × 20cm (see below)
50ml Sweetened Soy Sauce (see below), to serve
For the batter
100g plain flour
1 teaspoon ammonium bicarbonate powder
pinch of sugar
pinch of salt
650ml water
For Sweetened Soy Sauce
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
150ml soy sauce
100ml water
5 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon sesame oil

Makes 275ml

Mix all the ingredients together and store in a sterilized airtight container in a cool, dry place for up to several months.

For the batter, mix all the ingredients together until you have a sloppy mixture for dipping.

Mix the preserved vegetables, mushrooms and New Year cake together for the filling, then check the weight, as you will only need 45g to avoid overfilling the roll.

Lay the bean curd skin out flat on a clean work surface orientated to form a diamond shape.

Spoon the filling on to the skin about 2cm up from the bottom point of the diamond.

Flip the bottom point of the skin over the filling and roll up until you reach the 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock points, then fold each point in and continue rolling up as you would for a spring roll. Seal the top point of the roll with the beaten egg.

Heat the oil for deep-frying in a deep-fat fryer to 180°C.

Turn the roll in the batter to coat, then place straight into the oil and fry for about 5 minutes until the internal temperature reaches 60°C. The roll will be floating on the surface of the oil by this stage and golden brown in colour.

Remove from the oil and drain on kitchen paper.

Wrap the roll in the Cheung Fun Rice Sheet and cut it into 2cm-thick slices. Serve with Sweetened Soy Sauce.

CHEUNG FUN RICE SHEETS

Makes about 30 sheets
There are many recipes for this classic dim sum wrapper. Ours features water chestnut flour.

Why? It’s the way that I was taught and I enjoy telling people it contains this unusual starch.
INGREDIENTS

300g rice flour

206g water chestnut flour

37g wheat starch

37g potato starch

37g cornflour

750ml ice-cold water

1 teaspoon vegetable oil

1. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave to rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
2. Before proceeding, you will need a flat, about 15 × 20cm stainless steel rimmed baking sheet or shallow baking tin – yes, I said flat, not that disgusting old one at the back of your cupboard with a dip in the middle. If it is not completely flat, you will end up with cheung fung rice sheets that are uneven in thickness. It also needs to fit into your steamer.
3. Cut out a sheet of baking paper so that it is slightly smaller than the dimensions of your baking sheet.
4. Lay the baking paper on the baking sheet and pour enough of the batter on top so that it forms a 1mm-thick film over the paper.
5. Place in a steamer over a medium heat for 1 minute – the finished product should resemble a thin film of pasta.
6. Leave the baking sheet to cool for 10 minutes before carefully peeling off the baking paper that will have your beautifully thin sheet of cheung fun pastry attached and ready to use. Repeat with the remaining batter.

CHEF’S TIP

In cutting your bean curd sheets into neat 15 × 20cm skins, you will undoubtedly end up with lots of oddly shaped trimmings. Don’t throw them away, as they make a wonderful addition to a broth – simply add them to your soup just before serving to poach lightly and they will transform in texture to resemble sheets of noodles.
NEW YEAR CAKE

Made from glutinous rice flour, this comes in two varieties: a sweet brown one and a white version used as a stir-fried alternative to rice. It is commonly eaten during the Chinese New Year, as the name ‘nian gao’ implies, meaning to continually achieve more as each year passes.