While the Ikea bloggers’ program has concluded a month ago, we were given a surprise task this month and I must say this is by far the most exciting one to date as it’s just so relevant to the theme of the blog, which is FOOD ! We all know that Ikea is a home-décor place to begin with, but I am sure most of us should be familiar with the food in the Ikea café as well. The signature meat balls, the chicken wings, the poached salmon are just a few to mention. And recently, the Ikea’s café has a new item on their menu, which is none other than the veggie balls ! Comprising of wholesome vegetables ingredients, this is a must-try for those who does not love veggies (I am sure there are plenty out there, especially the mummies who might be scratching their heads off on getting the kids to eat their greens!). Having them made into veggie balls means you do not get to “see” any greens literally and you would probably be visualising yourself having some awesome meatballs when in fact, you are enjoying the veggies which you had so “hated”.
So can you guess the challenge now ? Well, that’s to incorporate the veggie balls in one of our recipes to participate in the veggie balls cook-off challenge !
After some pondering, I decided to come out with these Rainbow Vegetable Crystal Dumplings with Salted Egg Yolk Mash. Using the Ikea veggie balls as the core ingredient, they are being wrapped with a colourful dumpling skin that’s equally wholesome as all the “colours” used came either from the natural colourings of fresh vegetables or fresh fruits. No artificial colours were being used in this instant. To make it even more awesome, I topped it with some salted egg yolk mash and Japanese ebiko for that extra shiokness !
Now we all know most of the kids hate to eat veggies on its own. So by incorporating these veggies balls into rainbow dumplings, it is hoped that the brilliant colours would somehow attract them to the food and before we know it, all of them are enjoying the veggies in its “hidden form”.
Now you may ask how do I get the various colours in its naturally forms ?
Here’s what I did.
Orange – Fresh carrot juice
Purple – Fresh mixed/power berries juice
Light Yellow – Wheatgrass juice
Green/Blue – Blue pea flowers
The colours will somehow change a bit after steaming, especially for the wheatgrass juice, which was a faded green but turns to light yellow and the blue pea flowers was original blue but turn green thereafter. Nevertheless, as you can see, all are in their natural state and hence, as healthy as they can be.
Oh yes, there are also a few kinds of dumpling skins that you can used. Our usual pork dumpling skin uses the wanton skin which we can buy off the shelves easily and comes mostly in yellow colour. For this time round, I decided to do a crystal dumpling skin instead, which is what we usually see from the dim sum prawn dumpling (虾角). While I love that bit of transparent and clear skin colours, the setback for using this type of skin is that they turn hard easily once cooled. Hence, this dish is best enjoyed while they are fresh out from the steamer and no later than that. And instead of wrapping them in entirety like the prawn dumpling with the filling completely enclosed, I wrapped it in the way as our pork dumpling, which has the top exposed and by folding down the skin in a “petal-like” manner so that I can further enhance the veggie balls with the salted egg yolk mash and Japanese ebiko on top of it.
This salted egg yolk mash is sandy in texture, made wholly of mashed salted yolk only, cooked till foamy and golden, and placed delicately on top of the dumplings to add to the savouriness of the dish. The Japanese ebiko is mainly for décor purposes.
It is best to work on these dumplings in batches if you are doing it at home, that is once you have completed wrapping a few, do send them to the steamer immediately to prevent the skin dough from drying out. Still not perfect yet as I am still enhancing my skills on the dumpling skin in order to achieve a smoother and thinner texture too. but nevertheless, hopefully this can serve as an idea to those who are brainstorming for ways to get their children or loved ones who does not eat veggies to start enjoying these greens now, even if it’s in a non-traditional way. Everything has to start some where, isn’t it ? Gambatte !!!
1. Combine the wheat starch, tapioca flour an salt in a bowl. Cook the juice till boiling and add the hot juice into the flour mixture. Combine well and knead the mixture into a dough.
2. Add the shortening or oil and further knead it into a smooth dough. Roll the dough into a longish shape and divide equally and cut into small pieces.
3. Flatten one of the small dough piece and roll it thinly. Wrap one of the vegetable balls into the dough skin and ply the extra dough skin on the surface outwards, forming the “petals”. Trim the outline of the dumpling neatly. Continue with the rest of the dough.
4. Prepare the salted egg yolk mash by heating up some oil in a pot and adding the salted egg yolks. When the salted egg yolks start to turn foamy, add the minced garlic and ginger. Continue to cook it till the mixture turns all foamy. Remove from flame and set aside the salted egg yolk mash.
5. Prepare all the wrapped dumplings on a plate or bamboo dim sum holder. When the water in the steamer has boiled, place all the steam plates and bamboo holder onto the steam rack and steam on high heat for 10 minutes till cooked. Remove and serve hot immediately.
Enjoy and hope you like these little dainty dumplings !
- For the Dumpling skin (makes approx. 10 pcs):
- 100g wheat starch (tang mien)
- 30g tapioca flour
- 170ml of juice / blue pea water
- 1 tsp of shortening / vegetable oil
- dash of salt
- For the Dumpling Filling:
- Ikea Vegetable balls
- For the Salted Egg Yolk Mash:
- Some vegetable oil
- 3 salted egg yolks (cooked and mashed)
- ½ tsp minced garlic
- ½ tsp minced ginger
- Optional :
- some Japanese ebiko
- Combine the wheat starch, tapioca flour an salt in a bowl. Cook the juice till boiling and add the hot juice into the flour mixture. Combine well and knead the mixture into a dough.
- Add the shortening or oil and further knead it into a smooth dough. Roll the dough into a longish shape and divide equally and cut into small pieces.
- Flatten one of the small dough piece and roll it thinly. Wrap one of the vegetable balls into the dough skin and ply the extra dough skin on the surface outwards, forming the "petals". Trim the outline of the dumpling neatly. Continue with the rest of the dough.
- Prepare the salted egg yolk mash by heating up some oil in a pot and adding the salted egg yolks. When the salted egg yolks start to turn foamy, add the minced garlic and ginger. Continue to cook it till the mixture turns all foamy. Remove from flame and set aside the salted egg yolk mash.
- Prepare all the wrapped dumplings on a plate or bamboo dim sum holder. When the water in the steamer has boiled, place all the steam plates and bamboo holder onto the steam rack and steam on high heat for 10 minutes till cooked. Remove and top with salted egg yolk mash and ebiko (if using) and serve hot.
* This is a sponsored post from Ikea but all opinions and recipe are of the own.
