Mixed Mushroom Cheung Fun

5 from 10 votes

Servings: 8 large rolls

Author: Lisa Lin

This mushroom cheung fun recipe is a vegan version of one of my favorite dim sum dishes. Stir fried mushrooms are seasoned with teriyaki sauce and wrapped inside a soft and silky rice noodle sheet.

If possible, use a scale to measure the flours to get an accurate measurement. The starches, especially potato starch, cake easily, so it might be difficult to get a precise volume measurement. That said, I have provided volume measurements in Note 2, using the spoon-and-sweep method of measuring flour.

Prep Time1

Cook Time45

Ingredients

Mushroom Filling

8 to 9 ounces (225 to 255 grams) mixed mushrooms , (such as shiitake, oyster, etc., see note 1)
1 tablespoon sunflower, canola, or vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt, or 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 tablespoon grated ginger
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 tablespoons teriyaki sauce
3 tablespoons thinly sliced scallions
3 tablespoons chopped cilantro

Batter

140 grams rice flour, (see note 2)
90 grams potato starch
70 grams tapioca starch
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt, or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 tablespoon sunflower, canola, or vegetable oil, plus more for brushing pan
2 cups (475ml) room temperature water
2 cups (475ml) just boiled water

Equipment

cheung fun steamer
measuring cup with spout
brush
cooling rack

Instructions

Stir Fry Mushrooms

Rinse the mushrooms and pat them dry with a towel. Slice the mushrooms thinly (if you’re using shiitake, oyster, or king trumpet mushrooms) or tear them apart with your fingers (if you’re using maitake or shimeji mushrooms).
Heat a pan with 1 tablespoon of oil over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and sauté them for 2 minutes. Season with the salt. Transfer the mushrooms to a bowl and toss with teriyaki sauce, ginger, garlic, scallions, and cilantro. Let the mushrooms cool for 10 minutes.

Make Batter

In a mixing bowl, whisk together all the flours, sugar, and salt in a mixing bowl. Add 1 tablespoon of oil and 2 cups of room temperature water to the batter and stir to combine. Some of the flour will clump up at the bottom of the bowl. Don’t worry–keep stirring and the flour will loosen eventually. Place a silicone mat or a folded up towel under the bowl.
Boil some water with an electric kettle or on the stove top. Measure 2 cups of water and gradually add the boiled water to the batter with one hand while stirring the batter with the other. The silicone mat/towel should steady the bowl while you stir the batter.
Set the batter aside. Note that the flour sinks to the bottom in just a few minutes. Make sure to stir the flour right before you pour the batter into the steamer tray.

Prepare Steamer Box

Set the steamer box directly over the stove. Use a measuring cup with a spout to pour 5 to 6 cups of water to the bottom of the cheung fun steamer. There should be about 1 to 1 1/2 inches of water in the box. Slide one of the steaming trays into the steamer. Turn the heat to high heat and bring the water to boil. (See note 3) Then, reduce the heat slightly to medium-high.

Steam and Roll Cheung Fun

Set up your cheung fun making station. Have a small bowl of oil (about 3 tablespoons) ready and grab a brush to grease the bottom of a steaming tray. Stir the batter and pour about 1/2 to 2/3 cup of batter over the tray. With the first few cheung fun, you’ll notice that the batter is very slippery on the greased surface and it might be difficult to fill the bottom of the tray with batter. That is normal. It gets easier after several batches. Use the back of a spoon to spread the batter over the empty spaces.
Add some of the mushroom mixture about 1/3 of the way up from the bottom edge.
Use oven mitts or a kitchen towel to hold onto the handle of the steaming tray and insert it into the steamer box. Cook the noodle sheet for 2 minutes. You should notice a lot of air pockets on the noodle, which will deflate very quickly.
Prepare the next cheung fun as the first one cooks.
Use an oven mitt or kitchen towel to pull the cooked cheung fun out of the box. Let the tray cool on a cooling rack for a few minutes. If possible, place the cooling rack next to an open window. The cooling process is important because it allows the noodle sheet to set before you roll it.
Use one or two bench scrapers to lift the edge of the noodle sheet from the bottom of the pan.
Then, start rolling up the cheung fun. Use the scrapers to help you transfer the rolled up cheung fun to a plate.
Continue cooking the remaining batter, making sure to grease the steaming tray and stirring the batter before each batch.
Make sure there’s always a good amount of steam coming out of the steamer box. Replenish the water with a measuring cup at least once. Also, make sure the water in the box is bubbling pretty vigorously at all times.

Alternative Cooking Method

Place a steaming rack in the center of a wok. You want to use a large stainless steel wok that (ideally 14 inches wide) so that it is easy for you to place and remove an 8x8-inch or 9x9-inch pan from the wok. Fill the wok with water, enough so that the water level is just below the steamer rack. Cover the wok with a domed lid and bring the water to boil. You can leave the steaming rack in the wok as the water boils.
Lightly brush an 8x8-inch or 9x9-inch square baking pan with oil. Pour just over 1/3 cup of batter to cover the bottom of the pan. You may need a little more batter to cover a 9x9 pan. Scatter some of the mushroom filling an inch above the bottom edge. You can also scatter scallions and cilantro a few inches above the mushrooms to give the rolls more flavor.
Uncover the wok and carefully lay the square pan over the steaming rack. The steam can be scalding hot, so using oven mitts is helpful here. Cover the wok and steam the noodle for 2 minutes. Use oven mitts or a towel to remove the pan. Let the cheung fun cool on a cooling rack for a few minutes before using a scraper to roll it up.

Serving Cheung Fun

You can serve the cheung fun with sweetened soy sauce (see note 4 for recipe), like they do at dim sum restaurants. I like serving the cheung fun with a drizzle of my teriyaki sauce, soy sauce, and chili oil. You can also garnish with toasted sesame seeds and more sliced scallions.

Notes

You can use any mixture of mushrooms that you like: shiitake, maitake, oyster, king trumpet, shimeji, and enoki. Some dim sum restaurants serve mushroom cheung fun with wood ear (木耳, a type of fungus) for added texture.
Volume Measurements: Rice Flour: 1 1/4 cups; Potato Starch: 2/3 cup; Tapioca Starch: 2/3 cup. Previously, I listed the volume measurements for the rice flour as 1 cup, and the potato and tapioca starches as 1/2 cup. Those measurements were based on the dip-and-sweep method, which is less precise than the spoon-and-sweep method.
You can also fill the box with water in your sink by running water from the faucet directly into the box. However, be careful when transferring the box to the stove because you can accidentally spill water everywhere like I did during my test batch.
Sweetened soy sauce recipe: Mix 1/2 cup hot water, 2 tablespoons sugar, 3 tablespoons soy sauce, and 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil. Taste and add another half or full tablespoon of soy sauce, if necessary.
Don’t pour the batter onto a steaming tray or square pan until you are just about ready to steam the rice noodle sheet. You’ll notice that if you leave the raw batter on the steaming tray for too long, the flour starts sinking to the bottom.
Using a carbon steel wok: I don’t recommend steaming the cheung fun in a carbon steel wok because the boiling water in the wok can ruin the seasoning, especially if you live somewhere that has hard water.

Nutrition

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