Egg Dumpling - 煎蛋角

I was watching Masterchef US on TV last week . One of the elimination challenges was to cook a perfect egg dish using just one precious egg. The contestants had to prepare a dish that sheds spotlight on the egg itself.

Simple as it sounds , most contestants were striving to ensure that their dish turn out to be anything but… simple. As I watched them work frantically over the 30 mins, I wondered about what I would cook with the one egg if I were in their shoes. Possibly the Chawan Mushi / egg custard because it is interesting enough and more importantly, I can remember the ‘Golden Mixing Ratio’ of the recipe. What never ceases to marvel me when I watch reality cook shows like these is that the chefs and cooks never seem to have a need to refer to a recipe when they cook.

With food blogging, there is strong incentive to experiment with new recipes and dishes. As such, I find myself cooking increasingly by referring to new and interesting recipes. I was just chatting among some food blogger friends last weekend and I realize I am not alone in this. We all seem to share the same weakness for cookbooks and we now very rarely cook the same dish twice…… unless, of course if we had failed in our first attempt miserably.

I have always felt disturbed by the notion that I don’t cook any dish often enough to perfect it. The great cooks of my mother’s generation cook without a recipe but they do it often enough to iron out all the kinks and kooks.By then, they would have the whimsical feel of the recipe permanently imprinted in their mind and being. As such when they do share their recipe, they pass on a legacy, not just a set of instructions.

Today’s post is not a legacy, it is just a simple dish that I recall from my childhood- which I replicate without a recipe. The Chinese call it 蛋角(danjiao, egg dumpling) but really, it is the good old omelette, miniaturized and filled with minced meat sauce. This is a dish I would gladly eat with rice porridge or steamed white rice. Wholesome and simple, you can count on this to save the day even for the child with the most difficult eating habits.

Will this get me through the Masterchef Egg challenge? I doubt so – it is just too simple.


Recipe :

Meat Sauce refer here.

Omelette
4                eggs
1 tsp          light soya sauce
1.5 tsp       Tapioca starch
1 tsp          Water
Dash of pepper

Method:
1. Wet out the Tapioca starch with the tsp of water. Leave it to stand for 5 mins. If the water separates from the flour, decant the top layer water and retain the flour paste.

2. Beat the eggs in a bowl, season with soya sauce and pepper. Add (1) and stir to combine.
3. In a wok, heat up 1 - 2 tsp of oil.
4. Reduce heat to medium low.
5. Add 2 tbsp of (2) into wok. Once edges are formed, add 1 tbsp of minced meat sauce and seal the omelette by folding the omelette carefully over in half.