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Dim sum is so inconvenient, mainly because the DC Chinatown is so uninspiring. Plus, who really wants to stuff their face with fried, MSG-laden finger snacks on their 30-minute lunch break?

Make dim sum convenient for you by making it yourself, in the comfort of your own home. Last night, I threw a party at my house and struggled to think of an idea for an appetizer. The recipes in my Martha Stewart Hors D’ Oeuvres Handbook are so uncool, plus I didn’t want to look like I was trying too hard (I mean, we still play Kings and Beer Pong at my parties). I actually didn’t end up making shrimp toast, (if you have to know, I made spinach-pesto pinwheel sandwiches out of lavash bread) but I realized afterwards that shrimp toast would have been far more interesting than a garlicky, mojo-killing pinwheel sandwich.

Everyone likes dim sum, and a lot of people don’t realize that some of the dim sum offerings are super easy to make, like shrimp toast. Here’s a recipe from my Asian mom’s cookbook, which I’ve slightly modified to the modern palette (because the original recipe calls for ham, and that’s such a Filipino thing to put into a Chinese dish).

And just to preface the recipe, it’s called “dim sum series part 1″ because I’ll be posting more dim sum recipes later.

Recipe:

1 lb cooked shrimp, minced
1 tsp ginger juice (honestly, I don’t know how you would extrapolate the juice out of a piece of ginger, so 1/2 tsp finely chopped ginger would be fine, but if you want to go ahead and eke the juice out, be my guest)
1 tsp white wine
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp MSG (for a truly Chinese experience….you don’t have to put this in, obviously)
1 tsp cornstarch
6 slices bread, trimmed and quartered (use plain white bread, but if you have access to an Asian bakery, get Japanese or Korean bread for this, it’s a bit sweeter and has a finer texture)
2 tsp chopped green onion
cooking oil for deep frying

Mix first seven ingredients together. Spoon a heaping tbs of shrimp mixture on each square of bread. Sprinkle with green onion. Heat cooking oil and deep fat fry bread squres, first with shrimp side down, then with bread side down. Fry until bread turns GOLDEN BROWN. Remove from oil and serve hot. I like this with Thai chili sauce.

photo courtesy of Easy Fast Food.