Taro puff dumplings, wu gok
Souped Up Recipes · ♥ 8.7K likes · 359.2K views · 14 min video
Read about pork in the BrightCulinary Book
Timestamp
Ingredients
Method
Techniques
- 14 oz taro
Peel the taro, avoiding the low starch end section where the leaves come out; wear gloves if your skin is sensitive.
Slice the taro into quarter inch thick strips, then roughly cut into strips.
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 200 g water
Put the taro in a pot with half a teaspoon of salt, a tablespoon of sugar and 200 g of water, bring to a simmer over medium.
Mash the taro with a potato masher, mixing the wheat starch into the hot taro and water.
Wait until it is lukewarm, then knead it smooth by hand, or in a food processor on the lowest speed: the pieces come back together into one piece in about 25 seconds. Work in two batches rather than overfilling.
- pork lard
Break up the pork lard, add it and mix on low until the dough is soft, smooth and non-stick.
Working in lard and chilling 24 hours
Chill the dough in a container at least 24 hours so the taro starch fully retrogrades and the dumplings puff properly.
- 3 whole dried shiitake mushrooms
- Cantonese sausage
Finely dice three soaked dried shiitake mushrooms and the Cantonese sausage.
- 60 g diced carrot
- 114 g ground pork
- 114 g diced shrimp
- oil
- 1 tbsp Chinese cooking wine
Heat the wok until smoking hot, add a drizzle of oil and swirl to coat, then stir fry 114 g of ground pork with the diced mushroom and sausage a few minutes, breaking up the meat.
- ½ tsp white pepper
- 2½ tsp soy sauce
- 2 tsp oyster sauce
- 1 tsp dark soy sauce
Turn the heat to low, add 60 g of diced carrot, a tablespoon of Chinese cooking wine, half a teaspoon of white pepper, two and a half teaspoons of soy sauce, two teaspoons of oyster sauce and a teaspoon of dark soy sauce, and stir to combine.
- 2½ tsp cornstarch
- 2½ tbsp mushroom soaking liquid
Mix 2.5 tsp of cornstarch with 2.5 tbsp of the mushroom soaking liquid and pour it in to bind the filling; add a splash of water if it looks dry.
Binding with a slurry and adding shrimp
Knead the chilled dough a few minutes until soft and pliable again.
- frying oil
Roll about 35 g of dough into a smooth ball, put about 15 g of filling in, pack it tight, bend both sides to the middle and pinch the edge closed.
Bring the frying oil to 390 to 400F; or test by frying a small piece of dough 20 seconds and looking for a porous crust.
Set the dumplings on a flat strainer, pressing lightly so they stick to it.
Fry five at a time in a large pot over medium heat a few minutes until golden brown; the filling is already cooked, so go by colour.