蝦仁腸粉 Shrimp Cheung Fun (Steamed Shrimp Rice Noodle Roll)

During my one year life living in Hong Kong, I ate numerous cheung fun mostly as my midnight snacks. But just like the millet porridge I made previously, cheung fun is a versatile dish. Hong Kongers eat it for breakfast, a small meal for lunch, snacks, or a side dish for dinner. A traditional way to make good cheung fun is to mill rice for the grain milk and to steam the fresh rice milk to form a thin layer of rice noodle, combine it with other ingredients to make cheung fun. But it is also very common making cheung fun with rice flour, wheat starch, and water mixture. Ingredients to cook with cheung fun are also various, shrimp, beef, pork, or just eat plain with a good sauce. 

I can’t mill rice grains to duplicate the fresh rice milk cheung fun I tasted in HK before, but I’m glad my cheung fun made from rice flour mixture also tastes as good as a cheung fun supposes to taste like. My recipe here is a classical cheung fun beloved by Hong Kong foodies. Follow the steps you can also make easy homemade cheung fun. Have fun!      

Ingredients: (Makes 6 cheung fun)

• 60g short grain rice flour (or just normal rice flour you can get)
• 15g wheat starch
• 15g corn flour
• 8g oil (can olive oil or other vegetable oil)
• 350g water
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 30g *dried shrimps
• Chopped scallions
• Toasted white sesame seeds

*Dried shrimps are widely used in Asian cuisine. Unlike prawn or black tail shrimps, these dried shrimps are made from a small shrimp specie usually no bigger than thumbnail size being sun dried before delivered to the market. Dried shrimp has the umami taste that elevates flavor right away may it be a dish or a soup. It is a very popular ingredient in Cantonese cuisine as well.

Dipping Sauce:

• 1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1/2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1/2 tbsp sesame oil
• 1/4 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp hot water

The Cooking:

1. Reconstitute dried shrimps by soaking them in water for 10 minutes. Drain and set aside.
2. In a mixing bowl, mix rice flour, wheat starch, corn flour and water together. Whisk evenly then add oil, continue whisk until it’s smooth and you see oil breaks into very small droplets.
3. Bring water to boil and prepare your steamer. The steamer needs to be big enough to contain the plate that fills your rice batter. For steaming rice batter, I use a 1″ deep, 5.5″x7.8″ steel plate. If you don’t have a square or rectangle plate, using a round cake pan or plate (at least deeper than 0.5 inch) is fine, too. Brush the plate with oil on the bottom and sides so it will be easier to scrape rice noodle from the plate later.
4. Always stir evenly before scooping your rice batter into plate to prevent precipitation. To fill a thin layer of batter in my steel plate, every time I used 4 tbsp (about 57g) of rice batter. Swirl plate gently to make sure the whole bottom is coated. Sprinkle shrimps and chopped scallions on the batter then carefully put the plate into steamer and steam for 6-7 minutes (lid must be on at all time!). Steaming time will slightly vary depending on the size of plate you’re using. But one good way to judge is if you see the white noodle sheet is bubbling in the steamer, then it is ready. A normal sheet of rice noodle to make cheung fun is about 1/10 inch thin. But no worries if your noodle is a bit thicker. After a few practices, it will be easier to make thinner noodle sheets.
5. This step now requires extra attention and you need to be gentle handling your noodle if you’re trying this for the first time. Remove plate from steamer (watch out for the heat!). Brush slightly both sides of dough scraper with oil, then use the flat edge to scrape and fold the noodle sheet. After a few folds, use the scraper to pick up cheung fun and place it on a serving plate.
6. Continue the previous steps until finish. Mix well all sauce ingredients in one bowl. Sprinkle toasted white sesame seeds and drizzle sauce on top of cheung fun, or place sauce in another sauce dish for dipping. Garnish with sprouts or other veggies then serve.