Wednesday 27 August 2008

Chicken Gow Gees



These are the first Chinese dumplings I've made, and I am proud to say, they tasted Chinese! I found the recipe in one of my Australian Women's weekly booklet which I think are great (the same recipes on their website are not as good ;) and I have taken some liberties with it to improve time and taste:
Ingredients:
400g lean chicken
2 shitake mushrooms
5 chinese chive (or green onions if you don't have)
2 cloves garlic, crushed 1 Thumbed-sized piece fresh ginger, grated ¼ teaspoon five-spice powder 2 tablespoons hoi sin sauce 1 teaspoon sesame oil 1 egg Gyoza wrappers or Har Gau wrapper made from scratch if you fancy trying that (the recipe says wanton or spring rolls wrappers)

For the dipping sauce:
1 tablespoon of hoi sin (the recipe said char siu, but since you've already got some hoi sin there..)
1 tablespoon of light soy sauce
3 tablespoons of water (adjust to liking)
6 fresh birds eye chili slices (the recipe says 2 tablespoon of sweet chili sauce)
and I like to add one table spoon of oyster sauce + a small teaspoon of golden syrup or sugar).

Mince the chicken with a knife not toooo finely. Add the finely chopped shitake mushrooms (you will have soaked them for 20 min in boiling water, and discarded the stems), chives,garlic and ginger, then the hoi sin sauce, five spice, toasted sesame oil and and the egg. Mix well with your hands. (I scrapped the breadcrumbs from the recipe - breadcrumbs especially from a packet are evil!!)

Take the wrapper as shown in the photo below and fill the middle with the mixture, pushing so that the wrapper drops a bit between our fingers to create a well, then close the wrapper by pinching it at regular (and tactical) intervals. (There, the original recipe says to roll the mix in balls with a spoon and place the balls in the fridge, covered, for 30 minutes, to brush the wrapper with water and pleat it around the ball you will have placed in the middle)


Place the gow gees in your steamer - make sure to place them on one of these Teflon baking sheet that you will have cut to a round-ish shape, and leave them to cook for ten minutes.
In the meantime, prepare the sauce by mixing the ingredients mentioned above. There you are, your gow gees are gowgeous! ;) It was long for me to write the thing down, but it takes no time in the kitchen, and I think looks impressive enough - who actually MAKES dumplings huh? even my Chinese friends buy them ready made from the supermarket.... But you know what's in these and you know they are healthy!

Source: The Australian's women weekly's 'Chinese favorites' booklet. They also have a recipe on their website, there.
And here's what the gow gees looked like in the original recipe:

6 comments:

Laurie said...

En effet ils sont superbes !! Les shiitake dans la farce, en voilà une idée quelle est bonne ! Je le note pour la prochaine fois. Et je suppose que c'est de cette sauce dont tu me parlais ?

Christelle said...

Ah non, la sauce c'est une autre, mais celle la est deja tres bonne aussi.
Promis mon prochain poste c'est celle la! Desolee de mettre tant de temps...

Unknown said...

Ca m'a l'air délicieux ! et joliment présenté :o))
L'idée d'utiliser des feuilles de gyoza est excellente, car les feuilles pour wontan sont trop fines.
J'aurais rajouté une pointe de vinaigre dans la sauce ? ou huile de sésame ?
Tu me donnes envie de faire un blog cuisine...

ICook4Fun said...

Gow Jie is one of my fav to eat for breakfast :) I already sent you an e.mail to invite you to join foodbuzz. Have a good weekend!

Christelle said...

Marjolaine: commencez votre blog, j'en reve! et puis cela ferait peut etre faire rougir de honte Christina et elle s'y mettrai peut etre enfin, He he he!

Gertrude: Thanks for the email! I wish I could get these for breakfast!...

mycookinghut said...

You made really pretty dumplings! Bravo!