During a recent trip to Tim Ho Wan, Singapore we ordered their seasonal menu items. One of it was steamed dace fish dumplings.
What I found interesting is that they presented the dumpling like another bread-and-butter dim sum item - siew mai. (Actual picture of the dish to come.)(Or shu mai or siu mai... transliteration is always a pain, especially from Chinese.) Normally, pork and usually shrimp is used for siew mai.
So this menu item used fish instead and ended their item name also with "mai" in the Chinese label. Still, it's a completely original item because the spices, colour scheme and taste is different. And I like that they replaced the orange spot with a corn kernel!
One big plus goes to Tim Ho Wan for reproducing the actual food to look even better than the menu picture, with the fish paste filling even overflowing from the steamed dumpling cups.
The Gustatory Review
Dace is also known as the Chinese mud carp, a freshwater fish. However, I did not notice any of the usual muddy freshwater fish taste.
What was most interesting was that they flavoured the filling paste with orange peel and Chinese parsley (or is it coriander?). You can see these clearly in the image below, with the orange peel being the dark brown patch. I was sure there was some other spice too, but I couldn't put my finger on it. The orange peel, parsley and anonymous spice flavours complemented each other, but seemed completely separate from the taste of the fish paste, so it was a bit of a psychedelic experience to my palate. Also, it's probably these flavours that masked the freshwater fish taste.
I think the yellow bits inside may have been ground corn, especially since they topped it with that kernel, but I couldn't distinguish its taste.
Texture-wise, it was springy and chewy, a little bit like a fish ball. Very pleasant for a savoury dumpling!
Highly recommended because it's just plain interesting and my description doesn't do it justice, so you just gotta try it for yourself to get what I mean or disagree with me if you have to.
One big plus goes to Tim Ho Wan for reproducing the actual food to look even better than the menu picture, with the fish paste filling even overflowing from the steamed dumpling cups.
Dace is also known as the Chinese mud carp, a freshwater fish. However, I did not notice any of the usual muddy freshwater fish taste.
What was most interesting was that they flavoured the filling paste with orange peel and Chinese parsley (or is it coriander?). You can see these clearly in the image below, with the orange peel being the dark brown patch. I was sure there was some other spice too, but I couldn't put my finger on it. The orange peel, parsley and anonymous spice flavours complemented each other, but seemed completely separate from the taste of the fish paste, so it was a bit of a psychedelic experience to my palate. Also, it's probably these flavours that masked the freshwater fish taste.
I think the yellow bits inside may have been ground corn, especially since they topped it with that kernel, but I couldn't distinguish its taste.
Highly recommended because it's just plain interesting and my description doesn't do it justice, so you just gotta try it for yourself to get what I mean or disagree with me if you have to.
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