Cheung Fun (Steamed Rice Noodle Rolls)

Variations

• Fillings: prawn makes ha cheung, minced beef ngau yuk cheung, char siu char siu cheung, and nothing at all makes jaai cheung, the plain roll. Ja leung, with a whole youtiao rolled inside, is crisp in the middle and effectively a different dish. The photograph is ha maih cheung, topped with dried shrimp and minced pork; the ingredient list carries those quantities too.
• The plain roll is actually the test. With no filling there is nothing to hide behind, so how thin, how even and how translucent the sheet is shows immediately. If this is your first time, pour two or three sheets with nothing on them first.
• Chaozhou style: Guangdong and Hong Kong pour over a thin soy, but Chaozhou uses a thick peanut and satay sauce with coriander. The sauce is heavy enough that you barely see the sheet.
• Lai cheung fun: soaked rice ground on a stone mill into batter on the spot, rather than mixed from flour. The aroma is deeper and the sheet softer. The old Guangzhou shops still work this way.
• Against har gow — the same translucency by a completely different route: har gow is a dough, wheat starch scalded with boiling water and rolled out by hand; cheung fun is a film, poured and set by steam. Both are translucent because neither has gluten, but one starts as a dough and one as a liquid.
• The opposite of a crêpe: both spread a thin batter into a sheet. But a crêpe is cooked on a dry pan and is supposed to brown, and wheat gluten holds it together. Cheung fun sits in 100°C steam, so it never browns, and with no gluten it is starch alone that holds it. That is why one can be folded any time and the other only while hot.
• On the same axis as dotori muk and the oyster omelette: one principle — starch and water cooked until they set — used at three thicknesses. Dotori muk sets all the way into a block, the oyster omelette is stopped deliberately half set, and cheung fun is the thinnest possible film.
• Vietnamese bánh cuốn is essentially the same technique: more tapioca in the batter so the sheet is thinner still, minced pork and wood ear inside, and nuoc cham instead of soy.

Tips

• Stir before every pour. This is the single most important line on the page. Rice flour does not dissolve the way sugar or salt does. It only hangs in the water, and within a minute it starts sinking. Scrape the bottom with the whisk right before the ladle goes in and all ten sheets come out the same thickness.
• Thin. 1-2mm. Pour, then tilt the tray in every direction to spread it. A thick sheet never turns translucent and eats like a rice cake. You will pour too much the first time, so start with less than a full ladle.
• Why it sets. Starch swells and sets as it takes up water between 60 and 75°C (thickening). In 100°C steam, 1-2mm is finished in two minutes. Longer does not improve it, it only toughens it.
• Rice flour alone will not do it. On its own it steams up white and crumbly and tears as you roll. Wheat starch supplies the translucency and the chew, tapioca the spring (choosing flour). Each of the three is there for a reason.
• The oil is doing a different job here than in other steamed dishes. Oiling a steamer basket is pointless because the steam washes it away (steaming). Here the oil is not there to stop sticking during the steam — it is there so a film that has fully set in two minutes will release from the tray. That is also why a spoonful goes into the batter itself.
• Keep the water at a hard boil. Feeble steam sets the top while the underside stays raw, and it tears the moment the scraper goes in.
• Tie a cloth under the lid. Wherever a drip lands you get a hole. At 1-2mm this mistake is far more damaging than in any other steamed dish.
• Roll it hot. Thirty seconds is enough. A fully cooled sheet does not fold, it splits.
• Two trays are much easier. Oil and pour the second while the first steams, and there is no waiting.
• Re-steam leftovers. Cold cheung fun goes hard as the starch sets again; three minutes back in the steamer brings it right back. A microwave only dries the edges (reviving leftovers).