肉圓 — Print Recipe — The Culinary Codex

A translucent, gelatinous dome of sweet potato starch encasing a savory filling of seasoned beef and bamboo shoots, steamed or fried and doused in a sweet-savory sauce — a uniquely Taiwanese creation.

Ingredients

Wrapper: 200g sweet potato starch, 100g rice flour, 400ml water, 1 tbsp oil
Filling: 300g ground beef, 100g bamboo shoots (diced), 3 shiitake mushrooms (diced), 2 cloves garlic (minced), 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tsp five-spice, 1 tsp sugar, white pepper
Sauce: 3 tbsp sweet chili sauce, 1 tbsp hoisin sauce, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tsp sugar, 2 tbsp water, minced garlic
Cilantro for garnish

Instructions

1 Cook filling: sauté ground beef with garlic until browned. Add bamboo shoots, mushrooms, soy sauce, five-spice, sugar, and white pepper. Cook 5 minutes. Cool.
2 Make wrapper: mix sweet potato starch and rice flour with water in a pot. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture becomes a thick, translucent paste. Remove from heat.
3 Oil small bowls or molds. Place a spoonful of the starch paste in each, spreading up the sides. Add a spoonful of filling, then cover with more paste.
4 Steam for 20 minutes until the wrapper is fully translucent and bouncy.
5 Alternatively, deep-fry at 160°C for 8 minutes until the outside is golden and crispy.
6 Mix sauce ingredients. Unmold the ba-wan, drizzle with sauce, and garnish with cilantro.

Did You Know?

In Changhua, the birthplace of ba-wan, there is an unwritten etiquette rule: eat the wrapper and filling first, then pour soup into the leftover sauce in your bowl to make a second course.