Dim Sum at Home

The spread…

It’s been a hectic week to say the least. The superstorm Hurricane Sandy pummeled through New York City and the tri-state area pretty bad. To save you the details, all I have to say is that my family and I feel fortunate we’re all OK.

To celebrate this feel of gratefulness, if you will, we ended up cooking at home this morning and cooked up some dim sum dishes. Beyond my dad’s signature Chinese BBQ pork, we had…

Homemade shu mai (燒賣)

A large batch of shu mai (燒賣). It’s generally a mixture of ground pork and shrimp, shiitake mushrooms (dried but reconstituted), oyster sauce, soy sauce, salt, and black pepper.

A variation of har gao (蝦餃)

Since I ran out of tapioca starch to make the signature translucent har gao (蝦餃) or shrimp dumpling skin, I ended up using wonton skins. (The har gao recipe is found here.) Granted, the texture and flavor is different but it is still delicious.

Homemade mochi

To end it with a sweet note, I made some red adzuki bean coconut mochi. Basically, my homemade red bean paste has a fair amount of extra virgin coconut oil blended into the mixture that it has an inherent coconut flavor and the mochi skin has unsweetened desiccated coconut exterior to give it some texture and gentle coconut flavor.

This was a comforting, delicious meal to reconnect with each other.