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Been in Melbourne for a few weeks and came across South Melbourne Market Dim Sims. They are a deep fried meat parcel, as opposed to 'Dim Sum', which is steamed. They are superb, and sold in fish and chip shops in the Melbourne area. The best were from Williamstown.
I am finding it rather difficult to find the authentic recipe.. I have found a few recipes, but just by looking at the ingredients they are way off the mark..

One of those is as follows:-

Ingredients

dim sim wrappers
Finely dice up some red chilli's ( i used dried chilli flakesjust a sprinkle)
grated ginger
cabbage ( i used about an 1/8 of a cabbage
garlic
500 grams minced pork
2 tablespoons of light soy sauce
Combine all the chopped ingredients with the
minced pork, until its evenly distributed throughout.


Roll combined mince into a squash ball sized ball. I used dim sim wrappers but they were hard to find , i found them in coles in the section with the fresh pasta in the fridge .
Steam or fry , i found they stuck to the bottom of the steamer ,next time i will spray my steamer with cooking spray . I must admit they were nicer fried.
The ones I had didn't contain chilli, and nor did I detect any ginger. IMO the predominant seasoning appeared to be an abundance of salt and white pepper..

Does anyone have the recipe??

Regards, Paul Kribs

Paul by your description this sounds like a wonton, they are very distinctive to each region. The filling varies just like a sausage. they can be steamed boiled in a soup, pan fried and deep fried. The soup and deep fried is my fav. My spouse likes a garlic herb cream cheese in her's,


I am be going on about something not even related but I have made these very close to what you described. Very yum and to think the contents are a wet sausage filling.

My recipe off hand is
sesame seed oil,
soy sauce
ginger,
plenty of garlic,
ground pork
fine chopped Chinese cabbage
grated carrot
Raw egg,
5 spice
tapioca starch to bind

boil in chicken broth and the balance of the cabbage and a slice or two of ginger

deep fry and serve with a lite plum sauce OR soy sauce mised with viniger and ginger OR thai sauce

Thanks for your response BD, the ones I had were very sparse in the ingredients, I didn't even taste garlic. The pork was quite gelatenous in its texture and I wonder if pigskin or trotters are involved somewhere, so I would say that although ingredients are minimal, they are probably quite exact..

Would be nice to find out how they are made..

Regards, Paul Kribs

Dim Sum means "mouth Treasures" in Chinese and they are very typical of Cantonese cooking. If you go to Hong Kong, you will find that many restaurants specialise in them.

Most dim sum are steamed, but if you go to a decent restaurant specialising in them, you will see maybe 10 different fried dim sum, from fried wonton, to stuffed yam croquettes, and spring rolls. My favourites of all are Siu mai, which are sort of cork shaped, made from wonton wrappers filled with minced pork (and shrimp) and with a garnish of crab eggs. Then there are "prawn dumplings" and "scallop dumplings" made with a kind of white rather sticky pasta dough, not as soft as the pancakes I call "slippy sloppy pancakes" also filled with sea food and shaped into a half moon. In addition there are steamed buns filled with char sui (red roasted pork). All these are in fact steamed. What part of the world do you live in Paul, because if you can get to London, Queensway W2 The Royal China is pretty good, and sell about 20 or 30 different dim sums at lunchtime. You order 2 or 3 per person and they come with 3 or 4 of each in a steamer or on a plate.

I do hope you don't think I'm talking down.. Dim sum is/are some of my very favourite food in the whole world.

Thanks Oddley, enjoyed it very much. I couldn't believe the diversity of food on sale, even in their version of the local co-op.. the fruit was like it should be.. nothing like the stuff we have to put up with here. I was buying king prawns by the kilo, and Oz king scallops worked out at just under �12 per kilo (cleaned, no coral). You pick your piece of fresh fish at the chippie and they batter and cook it fresh.. the gummy shark is like a very fresh clean tasting piece of 'rock' or 'huss'.. bit dissapointed with the oysters, about the same price as here but quite a lot smaller... The meat was top notch as well. I expected the kangaroo to taste 'gamey', but found it very similar to beef.. very nice.
I could go on and on...

Anyway, back to the dim sims, thanks for the links but I reckon I will ask my son to delve a bit deeper.. They are not at all like the small dim sums, but almost the size of a cricket ball.. 2 of them fills you up.

Regards, Paul Kribs

Paul,
Are these steamed versions the one's your looking for?

There isn't a recipe here's the link to a blog. http://www.tummyrumbles.com/2007/04/south-melbourne-market-dim-sims.html

LD.

LD

The inside looks about right, albeit the ones I was eating were deep fried.
I wondered if prawns were part of the stuffing, but dismissed it as these were being sold for approx 75p..

Regards, Paul Kribs

Hi Paul. I have a recipe book called Australian Women's Weekly that only has recipes for deep-fried Dim Sims, so it might be an Australian speciality. Here's one that I particularly like you might wish to try:-

1lb minced pork
8oz prawns (finely chopped) reserve 8 for decoration
1/4 cabbage (finely shredded)
1 egg
2 tablespoons cornflour
6 shallots
2 teaspoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons sesame oil

8oz wonton wrappers
oil for deep-frying

Combine first 8 ingredients and mix well.

Divide mixture between wrappers, gather sides around filling, pleating edges together but leaving the top open.

Place a piece of reserved prawn on top of each dim sim.

Drop dim sims into deep hot oil and fry until golden brown.

The illustrations all show small dim sims, however, I don not see why you cannot make them whatever size you wish.

I also have the recipe for making the wrappers, as well as the following fillings: Five spice chicken; crab and ginger; bean curd and vegetable and beef and cabbage, as well as a number of dipping sauces. If you want to try any of these, just let me know.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Patty..

I reckon that is as near as I am going to get, as I mentioned in the earlier post, they tasted quite salty.. could be down to light soy sauce, and also quite pronounced white pepper so now down to a bit of experimenting on my part.

The ones I had weren't covered in wanton skins, but were the dumpling (dim sum) covering, but deep fried..

Once again thanks..

Regards, Paul Kribs

Hello again Paul. To help you get the authentic taste you are looking for I've checked all my oriental/chinese recipe books to find a variation on the wrappers used for either dim sim or dim sum. Surprisingly, the majority use the same, whether it be for for deep frying, steaming or soup - although the results do look different. However, in one book there is a recipe for a dish called Money-bags, described as traditional steamed (vegetable filled) dumplings.

Whereas in most recipes the wrappers are made from 2 cups of plain flour/salt/1 egg/3oz water which is mixed, kneaded and rolled, those for the dumplings adds 1 teaspoon of baking powder. The pastry is then kneaded lightly and left covered with a damp cloth for 6 minutes for the the baking powder to activate which (apparently) makes the dumplings swell when steamed.

I've got to be honest, I think you'll just have to take another trip to Oz to make make sure of the recipe and if you need a completely unbiased second opinion, I might just have a few weeks spare anytime soon.

Thanks Oddley and Patty.

Another trip to Oz won't be happening for some time.. works out quite expensive..

The second time I tried the dim sims at one particular place (the best ones), I sent the wife back inside to get 6 to take away, had them for dinner, supper and breakfast..

Regards, Paul Kribs

The best I've ever had was in a Vietnamese restaurant in Paris more years ago than I really care to remember but I've never been able to replicate the taste.

..... and it doesn't look like I'm going to ever get to Oz then ........!