Mark Bittman's Homemade Shu Mai

Earlier today, when scrolling through the backlog of posts in my Google Reader "Food" folder, I spotted this. It's a recipe for shrimp and cilantro shu mai, courtesy of Mark Bittman. Can you count how many things about that sentence made me happy? Yes? Well, I'll still go ahead and list them for you, in case you missed any.

1) Shrimp. Delicious sea-insects. I don't eat them nearly as often as I used to when I lived on the Gulf Coast, because they're markedly more expensive in Chicago. (Actually, they're probably markedly more expensive back home in Texas now, too. Curse you, BP.)

2) Cilantro. Fairly self-explanatory.

3) Shu mai. Shu mai and I have an unholy bond, the kind of obsessive love that can only result from the satisfying of one's most basic needs in a fashion well above and beyond the call of duty. Essentially, I find them indescribably delicious.

4) Mark Bittman. If you don't know who he is, please see The Minimalist, his books, and his website. His cookbooks and blogs are my go-to resources when I'm looking for a simple, elegant dinner. I owe a great deal of my cooking style to his influence.

Immediately, I determined that a) this was the perfect excuse to finally buy a food processor and b) I must make these for dinner. An hour and a fight with my snow-boots later, I had acquired a Cuisinart:


and the ingredients, or the closest approximation thereof that I could manage:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup soy sauce

1 tablespoon rice wine (I used mirin, a sweet rice wine)

1 tablespoon sesame oil (I used chili sesame oil, because it's what I had)

1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger

1/2 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined

1/2 to 3/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves (Seriously, what supermarket runs out of cilantro? I used parsley instead.)

1/4 cup roughly chopped scallions, white parts only

10 to 12 round dumpling skins (Mine were square. It's what they had.)

Juice of 1 lime.

First, whisk together the soy sauce, rice wine/mirin, sesame oil, and ginger.

Then, put half the shrimp, half the cilantro (or parsley), and all of the scallions into the food processor. Pulse until smooth.

Here, you can see me jumping the gun a bit. Add one or two tablespoons of your soy sauce mixture to the filling and pulse until you get a smooth paste. Then, the recipe instructs you to chop the remaining herbs and shrimp and add them to the filling, for textural variety. I just threw the remaining ingredients into the processor and pulsed it a few more times. Tsk tsk, lazy.

I swear I had a picture here of a dumpling wrapper, flat, with filling in the middle, but it seems to have gone missing. In any event, lay a wrapper flat, and brush the edges with water. Spoon some of the filling into the center. The recipe recommends about a teaspoon, but I used closer to two - possibly because my wrappers were square, and therefore larger.

Then gather the edges up around the filling, pinching them together, while leaving some of the filling exposed at the top.

Repeat as necessary. It's recommended that you keep your dumpling wrappers and dumplings under a damp cloth while working, but I neglected to do so and my dumplings (arguably) turned out fine. Just don't let them sit too long.

Set up a steamer in a large pot over about an inch of water. I actually have a steamer basket, but two ramekins and a plate (or something similar) works equally well. Bring the water to a boil, and then reduce to a simmer. Arrange a single layer of dumplings in the steamer and cover the pot. Meanwhile, add the lime juice to your soy sauce mixture.

Cook the shu mai until the filling is opaque and the wrapper is tender, 4-6 minutes. Transfer them to a serving platter, and repeat with the remaining dumplings. Serve them with the dipping sauce, like so:

As you can see, my square dumpling wrappers resulted in floppy little ears at the corners of my shu mai. Inelegant, sure, but no less delicious.

The filling has a variety of textures, but remains light, unlike a lot of Chinese-restaurant shu mai bricks. The greens add a bright, but not overpowering, flavor. I liked the parsley, but I think I would have preferred cilantro. However, I might have cut back on the amount of greens if I were using cilantro - it has a stronger flavor than parsley, and the parsley was pretty prominent. The dipping sauce was a great tangy complement to the dumplings; I love the combination of lime and seafood, though, so it would be hard-pressed to fail. In fact, if I were sure it wouldn't affect the texture of the filling too much, I might add some lime juice or a little extra dipping sauce to the filling before cooking. It certainly warrants experimentation.

The only real piece of advice I have regarding the recipe is this: don't be timid when shaping your dumplings! Squeeze that filling, pinch those corners, and don't be afraid if it squishes out the top a bit. I was a little shy with my first few dumplings, and they tried to fall apart on me in the steamer. Check out the Minimalist video if you need some guidance. They don't need to be origami works of art to be delicious.

Verdict: A+++ WOULD MAKE AGAIN.