What Surrounds Har Gow, Anyhow?

After eating that amazing har gow at Delicious Dim Sum I started to wonder..."What's the har gow wrapper made of???"  In search of answers I headed to Rasa Malaysia, my go-to blog when I'm interested in cooking a Chinese dish.  According to guest poster Shao, the wrapper is made of mostly wheat starch with a little tapioca starch and lard.  Interestingly, some Asian grocery stores will actually sell this mixture pre-made as har gow wrapper flour.

Now I had always assumed the wrapper was rice based, so this "wheat starch" was really intriguing to me.  A few facts about wheat starch:

• Wheat starch is produced by removing the proteins from wheat flour
• They think ancient Egyptians used wheat starch to glue papyrus together
• It's apparently available at art stores for book repair
• It's mainly a bonder for foods - it makes stuff stick together
• Some use potato starch for their har gow wrappers instead (one person also said you can use cornstarch but your wrappers will turn out crappy...boo yao)

Apparently incorporating 7+ folds in your har gow wrapper means you're kind of a badass.  I haven't tried it myself but I have a feeling my har gow wouldn't look even remotely close to the little seashell shape they're supposed to be.  I think most home cooks go with a more potsicker-y shape (top middle).

This video seems to do a pretty good job of showing the entire process of making har gow but I skipped to the folding part.  Given that this lady is 1) speaking Chinese and 2) old, I fully trust that she's doing it right.  It looks like there's a fair amount of sculpturing required after you pleat and close the dumpling in order to get the proper har gow shape.  Watching this video really makes me admire how much work must go in to making the 100s and 1000s of har gow that restaurants and bakeries offer!