Thai Tapioca Pearl Dumplings

Name: Thai Tapioca Pearl Dumplings
Yield: makes 24 dumplings, serving 6 to 8 as a snack
Ingredients: 1 cup small (1/8-inch) tapioca pearls; 1/2 cup just-boiled water (see Note, page 23); 1/4 teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon canola oil; 1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh cilantro roots or thicker stems; 1 teaspoon minced garlic; 3 ounces ground or minced fatty pork or chicken; 2 tablespoons finely chopped shallot; 2 teaspoons fish sauce; 1 tablespoon light brown sugar or palm sugar; 1/4 teaspoon white pepper; 1 1/2 tablespoons finely chopped unsalted, roasted peanuts; Salt; 2 to 3 tablespoons tapioca starch, for dusting; 1/4 cup canola oil; 1 tablespoon minced garlic; 8 to 12 soft lettuce leaves, such as butter or red leaf; 6 to 8 sprigs cilantro and/or mint; 3 to 5 hot Thai or serrano chiles, cut into 1/4-inch pieces (optional)

December 9, 2011

Thai food is full of bold juxtapositions of flavor and texture. For these crystalline dumplings, the chewy skin is made from tapioca pearls (saku in Thai). The filling of pork, peanuts, shallot, palm sugar, and fish sauce is crumbly, sweet, salty, and savory. To eat, the dumplings are wrapped in lettuce leaves with fresh herbs and hot chiles. Saku sai mu is a popular street food in Thailand; here in the States, I have purchased them at Thai markets and snack shops. Making the dumplings at home ensures freshness and availability, and the ingredients can be found at most supermarkets. Hard-core cooks may handmince pork shoulder or chicken thigh and seek out cilantro root and palm sugar from Southeast Asian markets, but ground meat (avoid superlean pork or chicken), cilantro stems, and brown sugar are terrific stand-ins.

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