This dish is really nice... in a rustic Chinese way. I like it, my younger one likes it, other members of the family thought it tasted "too Chinese"... It is true that the five spice taste was very prominent. So one can tone that down a bit.
My main problem, though, was not the taste but the bean curd sheets that I used. I bought fresh sheets that do not need soaking. But they turned out to be much thicker than the soakable dry variety, I couldn't wrap the rolls properly, and they did not allow proper steaming to take place. Even after an hour the filling was still uncooked. So I just made balls of the rest of the filling and steamed them separately. You can see a couple of them, behind the rolls on the photo. Then I dried the rolls and panfried them under a lid. This made the stuffing cook nicely and had the sides of the rolls crispen up, but the ends remained chewy.
In the end I also cut the remaining bean curd sheets up into smallish squares, marinated them (dipped them) in the sauce that I prepared for the rolls, and fried them. They came out a bit leathery but tasty. They did not seem to soak up any of the oil. I had to wipe them dry after they cooled. You can see also some on the photo, peeking out from under the balls.
All in all it was OK, there were no leftovers. But I will have to make some further adjustments before repeating it. And if someone can enlighten me as to how to handle the thicker non-dry bean curd sheets, what recipes are they really meant for, I would appreciate a comment about it here below... :)
And now for the recipe (taken from Paula at NibbleDish)
Wrappers:
• sheets of bean curd
Filling:
• 1/2 pound ground pork
• 3 tablespoons of soy sauce
• 2/3 cup of grated carrot
• 1 1/2 cup bean sprouts, blanched
• 4-5 dried shiitake (I used soaked wood ear)
• 1 1/2 teaspoon five spice powder
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 spring onion, chopped
• 2 teaspoons of potato starch
Sauce:
• 3 tablespoon of light soy sauce
• 2 tablespoon water
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon of sesame oil
Chopped spring onions for garnish
Soak the mushrooms, then chop them. Mix all the filling ingredients. If you use dried curd, soak that also first, then cut the sheet into smaller squares. Fill them with the few teaspoons of the filling, arrange them in the steamer and steam them until done.
