Dim Sum Plate
Finger foods are widely available in China and vary depending greatly upon your location. The most famous finger foods, however, come from Southern Chinese custom dim sum. While dim sum is traditionally served in the late mornings before noon, more and more dim sum foods are finding their way in contemporary Chinese cuisine as stand-alone snacks served at parties or office meetings or as a dinner alternative.
Steamed Snacks
The steamed foods that are traditionally found on a dim sum menu include char siu bao, har gao and siu mai. Char siu bao or steamed pork buns are leaved bread with a semi-sweet barbecue pork meat filling. Har gao are dumplings with a shrimp filling. The har gao dumpling wrapper is traditionally made with wheat and tapioca or sweet potato flour and boiling water, which, when steamed, correctly makes it translucent. Siu mai are open-faced steamed dumplings made with either a pork or shrimp filling topped with vegetable.
Fried Snacks
Fried foods do not make up as large a percentage of dim sum as steamed foods. However, there are several that are usually found on a dim sum menu, including fried spring rolls and fried squid. Deep-fried spring rolls are similar to the egg roll found in many Chinese-American restaurants with a single vegetable or combination of vegetables wrapped in a flour skin that is then deep-fried. Fried squid is much like the popular American pub snack, fried calamari, except that it is not breaded or battered and is generally served either in a sauce or served with a separate sauce or mix on the side.
Sweets
Dim sum also includes a wide range of sweets that are traditionally found on the menu. Some of the more well-known sweets include egg tarts, tang yuan and mango pudding. Egg tarts are bite-sized egg custard pies served in a flaky crust pastry. Egg tarts that combine green tea, chocolate or fruits with the egg custard are also very popular. Tang yuan are small round-shaped snacks of glutinous flour with either a sesame and sugar, peanut and sugar or red bean and sugar filling. In addition to being a mainstay on a dim sum menu, tang yuan are traditionally eaten on the last day of the Chinese lunar new year celebrations. Mango pudding combines evaporated milk, sugar, mangoes and a gelatin that is then chilled and served with fresh mango or other fruit on the side.
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