Siomay Ayam (Chicken Dumpling)

One of my all time favorite street vendor snacks is Siomay. Its steamed fish dumpling with vegetable (steamed potato and cabbage), tofu and boiled egg, served in peanut sauce. Traditional siomay made of ikan tenggiri (Wahoo fish) meat altho it is common to substitute the fish with shrimp, or mackerel.  

When I was small (yes, I was small once, long long time a go), I ate a lot of siomai and other snacks from the street vendor. Yes, I know it wasn't very healthy, but then again before the age of 25, I wasn't really careful with what I eat. Finding a decent pants was easy. I didn't have to tuck in my tummy like I was about to burst everytime I try to zip my pants. But now in my early 30s, I have to (at least try) avoid most of the food that once brought me joy and happiness in life. Like fried food and street vendor snacks. However, life is short and I have zero low self-control, plus I have a blog to maintain, so for the sake of this blog, I will continue cooking and posting recipes of street vendor snacks. 

In the interest  of the blog's continuation (and to satisfy my craving), I tried gazillion recipes for traditional siomai and so far I haven't find one that is to my liking. I can't find Wahoo fish anywhere, so I tried the recipes with mackerel fish or shrimps. I am still on my quest on finding a nice (read: easy) fish siomai recipe. 

Meanwhile, I satisfy my craving for siomai by making this fool-proof chicken siomai. Its super easy and tasty. 

Ingredients: 

550 gr ground chicken (a mix between white and brown meat)

5 garlic, paste using mortar and pestle

1/4 tsp sugar

2 tsp salt

1 tsp white pepper powder

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tsp japanese soy sauce

1 tsp oyster sauce

200 ml of ice cold water

150 gr tapioca flour

50 gr flour

150 gr shreded carrot

4 scallions, thinly sliced

gyoza dumplings

Cooking step:

1. Mix pasted garlic, sugar, salt, white pepper powder, sesame oil, japanese soy sauce, and oyster sauce thoroughly,
2. In a mixing bow, add ground chicken, tapioca flour and flour, mix well,
3. Add ice cold water one table spoon at a time, you may need less or more water than what I used, depends how thick you want, 
4. Add carrot and scallion, mix well gently so you don't crush the carrot and scallion, make sure your mixture has no clumps (flour clump or carrot clump),
5. Wrap a heap teaspoon full of the mixture on a gyoza dumplings, check out the following pic on how to fold,

Folding step: 

1. Lay a sheet of the wonton skin on a flat surface,
2. Using two teaspon, try to make a ball from the mixture, 
3. Put the mixture in the middle of the wonton skin,
4. Scrunch it gently with your fingers,
5. Make sure most of the wonton skin stick to the mixture,
6. It will look like a scrunched-up helpless ball of sticky dough, 
7. Lay a parchement paper on your steamer and arrange the siomay neatly on it, 
8. Steam it for about 20 minutes,
9. Et voila, your siomai is ready. Serve it with peanut sauce or Thai sweet and spicy sauce. 

Happy cooking!