steamed dumplings

The idea today was to produce steamed buns that contain egg yolks that break open like a real eggs. They will have a filling, but at the center of the filling, whatever that filling would be, most likely something using the egg whites, the raw egg would pour out providing its own sauce. Like a carbonara, except with wheat dough instead of wheat pasta for the starch. The trick would be to get the egg yolk inside the bun. The second trick would be to steam the bun but not so much that the yolk in its center also cooks. Shut up, it's an experiment.

I can visualize it, but not all the way. Should the filling be a paste? Should it be stiff or loose? Dry or wet?  Meat or plant? Protein or carbohydrate? These questions will resolve as they are approached. Put another way, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Smooth as a baby's bum. Actually, I wouldn't know, I never had cause to touch a baby's bum. They could be like 80 grit sandpaper for all I know. This photo ↓ of course belongs way down there ↓↓ a few steps later, but you're having it here.  

Not shown: eggs are separated yolks and whites into separate bowls. One of the eggs was a double-yolked egg and that one broke which messed up my bowl of yolks. 

Not shown: napa cabbage and bean sprouts for the filling. A thin roux was browned and a sauce prepared with chicken stock and heavy cream. The egg whites were added to that then cooked on extreme low while whisking continuously, carefully assessing the thickness. I was aiming for a viscosity close to a paste. I was imagining smearing flattened dough with this paste then coddling an egg yolk within it and carefully pinching the dough into a dumpling.  There was more liquid, mostly egg white, than what would go with the amount of solid vegetable I prepared so over half this liquid was strained out.  I should have reserved more because eventually there wasn't enough for six dumplings. 

Another yolk broke during handling from the bowl. The first yolk wrapped in its dough also broke. That suggested to me to use a ramekin to help form the dumplings. But the ramekin did not  prevent two more yolks from breaking. One broken yolk was wrapped anyway, the second one that broke after the ramekin was used was discarded in utter disgust. That's five broken yolks. I was pretty much over the whole idea at that point. I ran out of filling too but still had dough so I cracked open two more eggs and wrapped those without filling. This whole experiment was fraught with mishap unfortunate to egg-conservation. 

Each dumpling has their own little piece of parchment square. 

These are the buns after the dough rose a second time and ↓ after the dumplings were stuffed.

As you can well see a few problems developed just sitting there for about fifteen minutes. Three leakages, specifically. (One dumpling was previously patched) That's eight broken yolks total. Eight out of six, a very bad record indeed. This boded poorly for the whole enterprise. 

Conclusion: Fail. 

A sauce is needed because the yolk solidified. Needs salt. Children would probably like these. 

Will I try this again? Maybe. Dunno. Burned once, shy twice. OTOH, I am dreadfully stubborn, and I do learn from mistakes, so there's that working for me working against me going on, and this idea is unlikely to just go away. 

What did I learn? I learned ramekins are useful but no assurance. I learned not to have unpacking the dishwasher set the timing for bun-steaming when liquid egg yolks are the aim. I learned the filling must be interesting and probably should contain pork.