HomeCooked

Prawn Dumpling Soup

I have always loved Mum’s dumpling soup. Unlike many of the cheap dumplings sold outside, Mum uses fresh succulent prawns. Adding chopped water chestnuts gives a refreshing crunchiness to the taste too, which the usual ones sold outside lack. I decided to try my hand at making some dumplings recently…

 

Ingredients 

• 250g of minced pork
• 4-5 medium to large prawns, shelled, de-veined and diced
• 1-2 water chestnuts, washed, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 tsp cornflour
• 1 tsp light soya sauce
• 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp sugar
• Dash of white pepper
• Chicken stock
• 6-7 stalks of Chinese chye sim (or caixin)
• Dumpling skin (available at most local supermarkets or at the local wet market)
• Spring onion / Chinese parsley for garnishing.
• Sesame seed oil

Method

1. Prepare the filling: Mix pork, prawns, water chestnuts, cornflour, soya sauce, salt, sugar and pepper. Leave to marinate for 15-20 minutes. (The amount here should be adequate to make 18-20 dumplings)
2. Make the dumplings: fold the dumpling skin into half and put an adequate amount of filling within.
3. Boil pot of water.
4. Cook dumplings in boiling water for 4-5 minutes (till the dumpling wrinkles). Cook in batches of 5-6 dumplings each time to ensure that they are well cooked! Remove dumplings and drain dry when cooked.
5. Using the water from boiling the dumplings (which contain kansui – which is essentially a type of alkaline water, containing sodium carbonate and usually potassium carbonate), boil chye sim for 3-4 minutes. The kansui makes the chye sim nice and green when cooked. Remove the chye sim and drain when cooked.
6. Serve dumplings with chye sim in chicken stock, adding light soya sauce to taste.
7. For added fragrance, add a dash of sesame seed oil and pepper.
8. Garnish with spring onion and Chinese parsley.
9. Serve hot!