Mung Bean Puffs / Tau Sar Piah 豆沙餅
Since Mid-Autumn Festival is creeping nearer and nearer, my thoughts turned to Chinese puff pastry snacks, so I decided to make Tau Sar Piah since I haven’t had a taste for a long, long time.
Although Tau Sar Piah is available all year round back home in Malaysia, I thought I will make do with this snack for the festival this year since Chinese baked pastries are usually associated with the festival anyway.
Combining the basic Chinese puff pastry recipe and the basic bean paste recipe, I concocted the recipe with the addition of sesame oil and five-spice powder in the bean paste for an extra bit of oomph!
Makes 20.
[Ingredients]
Chinese Puff Pastry – Water Dough:
100g bread flour *, sifted
100g cake flour *, sifted
70g lard (or shortening, or unsalted butter), softened
20g icing sugar
100ml water
Chinese Puff Pastry – Lard Dough:
120g cake flour *, sifted
60g lard (or shortening, or ghee), softened
* If either bread or cake flour is difficult to get, both may be substituted with plain flour.
Filling:
400g Mung Bean Paste
To Finish:
1 egg, lightly beaten for eggwash
1 tablespoon white sesame seeds, for sprinkling as topping
http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/
[Preparation]
Chinese Puff Pastry – Water Dough:
Rub lard into the sifted flours, then add the remaining ingredients and mix to form a soft dough, you may need to adjust the amount of water depending on the water absorbency of the flour used. Knead until smooth. Wrap in cling film and set aside for 15 - 20 minutes before using.
Chinese Puff Pastry – Lard Dough:
Rub lard into the cake flour and knead until the dough has approximately the same pliability/malleability as the Water Dough.
To make Chinese Puff Pastry:
Divide the Water dough and the Lard Dough respectively into 20 equal portions. Take one portion of the Lard Dough piece and wrap it inside a Water Dough piece (image 1, above). Roll the combined dough piece out into a thin flat sheet using a rolling pin (image 2). With your hand, roll the thin sheet up, Swiss-roll styled, into a cigar shape (image 3). Turn the cigar 90° so that one of the round ends faces you (image 4). With the rolling pin, roll it out into a flat sheet again (image 5). Then roll it up Swiss-roll styled again (image 6). Roughly round the roll-up dough piece into a ball. Repeat with the rest of the dough pieces until you get 20 combined dough balls.
To make Puffs:
1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Divide the filling into 20 equal portions, 20g each.
Mung bean paste divided into 20 equal portions as filling.
2. Roll out or press each dough ball into a round flat disc, with the outer edges slightly thinner than the centre. Wrap one portion of the filling inside each portion of the flat dough. Seal up tightly by pressing the edges together to enclose the filling. Place the puff, seal side down on a baking sheet. Repeat with the rest until finished.
3. Glaze the puffs with eggwash. Sprinkle a little sesame seeds on top of each puff. Bake for about 18 - 20 minutes, or until light golden in colour.
Freshly baked Tau Sar Piahs.
Skinless, split mung beans 去皮綠豆.
Mung Bean Paste 綠豆沙
Makes approx. 3 cups (750g) bean paste
[Ingredients]
300g skinless, split mung beans 去皮綠豆片
75g lard, or canola/corn oil
½ cup shallots (or 1 medium onion if shallots are unavailable), sliced
¼ teaspoon sesame oil (optional)
¼ teaspoon five-spice powder (optional)
180g white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
[Preparation]
1. Soak mung beans in enough water to cover for at least 2-4 hours. Drain.
2. Place the drained mung beans in a large plate that can fit into the steamer/wok, spread out the beans into an even layer. Rapidly boil water in a steamer/wok, steam the mung beans until soft, about 30 minutes.
3. Remove beans from steamer and press through a sieve to remove any hard particles, this process will also produce a very fine paste.
4. Melt lard (or oil) in a wok, add sliced shallots and cook over low heat until golden brown and aromatic, about 10-20 minutes. Drain and remove the golden brown shallots for other use. Return the flavoured oil to the wok.
5. Add sesame oil and five-spice powder, cook over low heat briefly until aromatic. Add the sieved bean paste, sugar and salt. Turn heat up to medium/med-high and stir-fry until thick and the bean paste can stand in peaks. Cool.
Mung Bean Paste.
[Note]
1. Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.
2. The size of egg used is about 60g (includes shell) unless otherwise stated.Labels: Asian Fillings, Asian Pastries
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Snowskin Daifuku Mochi 冰皮大福餅
Daifuku Mochi is a very common Japanese sweet or wagashi.
Traditionally it is very time and labour consuming to make as the cooked glutinous rice needs to be pounded into a paste to make the skin or pastry. Nowadays it is more likely to be made using the Japanese rice flour known as shiratama-ko which is a Japanese granular glutinous rice flour.
According to Wikipedia, the Japanese name of daifuku, 大福 (meaning great luck or fortune), was originally written as 大腹 (meaning big belly) which described the big belly-like round shape of the sweet. Since the pronunciation of the word 腹 is the same as 福, it was later changed to 福 to give it a more auspicious sounding name as this sweet is, as are most wagashi, usually given as gifts in Japanese tradition.
Although Daifuku Mochi is the basic style with white translucent skin and red bean paste filling, there are many variations of this sweet. They include Ichigo Daifuku (苺大福, see my adaptation into a mooncake) which has the addition of a strawberry inside the bean paste, Yukimi Daifuku (雪見大福) which uses ice cream as a filling instead of the red bean paste, Yomogi Daifuku (蓬大福) which uses kusa mochi (草餅) flavoured with yomogi, and the most recent creation known as Yuki Ichigo (ゆきいちご 雪苺娘), with a myriad of fillings made from a combination of whipped cream, custard, a variety of fruits and a small piece of sponge cake.
Recently I bought a packet of red bean paste to try out as it came in a plastic pack instead of a tin. I think it is made for the Japanese market as the instructions on the back are all in Japanese although the bean paste is made in China. So I decided to use it to make some daifuku mochi. I also decided to keep it simple by using the cooked glutinous rice flour to make the skin and avoided the cooking process. I added a little strawberry paste to colour the skin, so it is basically the same as my Snowskin Strawberry Mooncakes but with a little changes to the recipe. So here they are, my quick and easy daifuku dumplings!
Makes approx.10 daifuku mochi.
[Ingredients]
150g cooked glutinous rice flour (加工糕粉), sifted
100g pure icing sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon canola or corn oil
180ml cold boiled water, adjust as necessary
few drops strawberry paste
extra cooked glutinous rice flour, for dusting
500g red bean paste
http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/
[Preparation]
1. Mix together cooked glutinous rice flour and icing sugar in a mixing bowl.
2. Dissolve strawberry paste in water, adjust colour to your liking.
3. Add oil to the flour mixture and mix well. Gradually pour the coloured water into the flour mixture and stir vigorously until a soft dough formed. Knead into a smooth dough. Rest for about 15 minutes before using.
4. Divide the red bean paste into 10 equal portions. Divide the dough also into 10 equal portions. Wrap each red bean paste ball inside each flattened dough pieces. Dust with extra cooked glutinous rice flour.
[Note]
Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.Labels: Asian Pastries, Teatime Treats
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Dimsum Chicken Pies 雞批
These mini Chicken Pies are one of my favourite dim sum dishes.
Although the recipe asked for those mini tart tins of about 6.5cm top diameter x 2cm high (I used these to make my Dimsum Egg Tarts as well), you do not necessary need to have them to make these mini pies. The ones in the cookbook I adapted from asked for tins of about 8cm (3”) in diameter. You may substitute with deep patty tins or even muffin tins to make them which I have done previously as well, but then you need to adjust the amount of pastry to be used for the crust. Also the amount of the filling suggested is a bit too much to be used all up for the pies, I just used the leftover filling to make fried rice, yummy as well!
Adapted from the recipe '小雞批' in '飲食資訊庫．專業系列 7﹕中國點心製作圖解 Chinese Dim Sum in Pictures' by 江獻珠, published by 萬里機構．飲食天地出版社 1994 (2003 12th ed.), ISBN 962-14-0794-X.
Makes approx. 11 mini pies using 6.5cm (top diameter) x 2cm (heigth) mini fluted tart tin.
[Ingredients]
Pastry (for about 11 pies):
225g (1½ cups) plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
20g (1 tablespoon) caster sugar
½ teaspoon salt
55g lard, cut into cubes
55g salt-reduced butter, cut into cubes
1 whole egg (remove 2 tsp for use in sticky pastry) + water to make ¼ cup (60ml)
1 egg yolk, for egg wash
Filling (enough for about 15 pies):
200g skinless chicken thigh meat, cubed into pea-size
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon light soy sauce
1 teaspoon Chinese (Shaoxing) cooking wine
dash sesame oil
pinch ground white pepper
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 medium-size onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
5 white button mushrooms, cubed into pea-size
50g cooked carrot, cubed into pea-size
50g cooked peas
1 teaspoon oyster sauce
1 tablespoon plain flour
60ml (¼ cup) water
http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/
[Preparation]
Pastry:
1. Rub butter and lard into flour, baking powder, sugar and salt mixture.
2. Beat 1 whole egg lightly, remove about 2 teaspoons to use later. Add water to the remaining egg to make up ¼ cup (60ml).
3. Slowly add egg/water mixture into the flour mixture. Cut through the mixture with a bread knife as you pour. You may not need all of the egg/water depending on the absorption capability of your flour and the humidity in your kitchen – in my case I did use all of the egg/water mixture this time. Once the mixture starts to cling together, use your hand to press together into a ball. Try not to knead too much if you can. Cover with cling film and chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 180°C. Pinch out ten to eleven pieces of dough, approximately 25g each, and form into balls. Place each into 6.5cm x 2cm mini fluted tart tins. (If you don’t have this type of tart tins, you can use deep patty tins or muffin tins, but then you need to adjust the amount of dough used for the crust of each pie). For each pie, start pressing the dough piece in the tart tin outward to cover the inside of the tart tin to form the base of the crust for the pie. Try to make the pastry as evenly a thin layer as you can.
5. Fill each pie base with about 1 tablespoon of cold filling.
6. Roll out the remaining dough to a thin layer of about 3-4mm thick. Use the top of an empty tart tin to cut out rounds to make the top of the crust for each pie.
7. Use the reserved 2 teaspoons egg mixture to glue the top pastry to the base (moisten both top and bottom pastry around the edges with the egg mixture).
8. Egg wash the surface of each pie with the beaten egg yolk. Use a skewer to prick a hole on the surface of each pie to act as the steam hole. Then use a knife to cut criss-cross diamond pattern on the surface of each pie.
9. Bake for about 25-30 minutes.
Filling:
1. Marinate cubed chicken meat with salt, sugar, soy sauce, cooking wine, sesame oil, ground pepper and cornstarch for about 30 minutes.
2. Heat a wok until hot. Pour in about 2 tablespoons canola oil. Sauté chopped onion until translucent. Add minced garlic and stir-fry for a minute. Add marinated chicken meat and cook briefly until its colour changes, then add mushroom, carrot and peas. Cook briefly, add oyster sauce, stir to mix well. At this stage, adjust seasoning if necessary. Add flour and stir quickly to mix well. Slowly add water and cook until juices thicken. Remove to a bowl and let cool completely before using.
[Note]
1. Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.
2. The size of egg used is about 60g (includes shell) unless otherwise stated.Labels: Asian Pastries, Dim Sums
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Mango Coconut Rice Dumplings 芒果糯米糍
This is a very popular sweet snack from Hong Kong.
Its pastry is traditionally made from raw glutinous rice flour which needs to be cooked before being used to wrap the filling. As a shortcut, I used cooked glutinous rice flour (koh fun) to make them instead.
Makes approx. 14 dumplings.
[Ingredients]
Rice Dumpling Pastry:
150g cooked glutinous rice flour (koh fun)
50g cornflour
2 tablespoons (40ml) canola or corn oil
250ml (1 cup) mango nectar
1 teaspoon mango essence (optional)
Filling:
2½ tablespoons (25g) custard powder
1 tablespoon coconut milk powder
2 tablespoons (35g) caster sugar, or to taste
½ cup (125ml) water
1 tin (425g) sliced mango, drained and reserving nectar
Coating:
desiccated coconut
http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/
[Preparation]
Filling:
1. For the custard, dissolve custard powder, coconut milk powder and sugar in water in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat and whisk continuously until the custard thicken and able to stand in peaks. Remove from heat and cool quickly, then cover with cling film if not used immediately.
2. Drain sliced mango from tin, reserving juice for making pastry. Chop drained mango slices into small pieces. Fold into cold custard. Divide into 30g pieces and round into balls. The best way to handle the sticky custard filling is to wet your hands when dividing the custard.
Rice Dumpling Pastry:
1. Line the inside of a microwave-safe container with paper towel (kitchen paper), spread cornflour evenly on top of the paper, microwave on HIGH (650W microwave) for 1 minute to remove its raw tart taste. Sift and set aside to cool.
2. Measure the reserved mango nectar, top up with cold boiled-water if necessary to make 250ml. Mix cooked glutinous rice flour, cornflour, oil, mango essence and nectar in a mixing bowl. Stir vigorously with a chopstick until a soft dough formed. Knead the dough briefly until smooth. Divide the dough into approximately 40g each.
3. Take one dough piece and roll out to form a thin layer, middle slightly thicker than the edges. Put a filling piece in the middle and start pleating the dough edges to seal up the filling (like making Char Siew Pau). Finish making the rest of the dumplings.
4. Coat the finished dumplings in desiccated coconut and place sealed side down on a serving plate. The dumplings can be kept soft in an airtight container in the refrigerator for about 2 days.
[Note]
Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.Labels: Asian Pastries
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Donkeys Rolling in Dust 驢打滾
Donkeys Rolling in Dust are small rice cakes with red bean paste from Beijing (北京).
The name stems from the fact that the cooked soybean flour (ground soybean, 黃豆麵 or 黃豆粉) used to coat the outside of each rice cake looks like the yellow dust that donkeys like to roll in. Its original name is ‘Ground Soybean Coated Rice Cake (豆麵糕)’, but ‘Donkey Rolling in Dust (驢打滾)’ has become its more popular colloquial name. This rice cake is traditionally made from raw glutinous rice flour which is mixed with water, then steamed. The cooked rice cake is then rolled up filled with red bean paste, and finally dusted with a layer of cooked soybean flour.
This is my version using ready-bought cooked glutinous rice flour which saves me the trouble of steaming the raw glutinous rice flour. I also used lotus paste (蓮蓉) here as filling because I had a tin of the paste in my pantry instead of the traditional red bean paste (紅豆沙). The ones from Tianjin (天津) are made from Chinese date paste (棗泥) if I am not mistaken, well that’s what I’ve heard anyway, so you can use that if you prefer. These rice cakes are actually quite similar to another rice cakes from southern China known as Banana Rolls (香蕉糕) which are sometimes filled with red bean paste as well but without the dusting of soybean flour on the outside.
Makes approx. 20+ pieces.
[Ingredients]
160g cooked glutinous rice flour (糕粉 or 'koh fun' in Cantonese), sifted
50g cornflour
50g pure icing sugar
60g melted ghee, or canola or corn oil
250ml cold boiled-water
500g lotus paste
50g soybean flour 黃豆粉, for dusting
http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/
[Preparation]
1. Line the inside of a microwave-safe container with paper towel (kitchen paper), spread cornflour evenly on top of the paper, microwave on HIGH (650W microwave) for 1 minute to remove its raw tart taste. Sift and set aside.
2. Repeat the process with soybean flour. Alternatively, stir-fry the soybean flour in a dry wok or frying pan until fragrant and cooked. Or if you can get hold of dry soybeans, stir-fry them in a dry wok until fragrant and cooked, then grind into powder (easier still if you’ve got a coffee grinder), this will be much more fragrant than using bought soybean flour.
3. Mix cooked glutinous rice flour, cornflour, icing sugar, melted ghee and water in a mixing bowl. Stir vigorously with a chopstick until a dough formed. Knead the dough until smooth. Divide the dough into three equal portions of about 175g each.
4. Dust the working surface with some of the prepared soybean flour. Take a piece of dough and place on top of the layer of soybean flour. Roll the dough into an approximately 30cm x 20cm pastry layer. Put about 150g lotus paste on the pastry layer, cover with a piece of greaseproof paper to help with the spreading – push the lotus paste out roughly (through the greaseproof paper) over the pastry with your fingers. Then use the rolling pin to roll the lotus paste out evenly covering the pastry, again with the greaseproof paper on top. Once you think the lotus paste is spread out evenly, remove the greaseproof paper. Roll the pastry with the lotus filling up into a long rice cake roll similar to a Swiss roll. Repeat with the other two dough pieces.
5. Cut each rice cake roll into 5cm pieces. To finish, roll each rice cake pieces in more of the prepared soybean flour.
6. Serve with a dusting of icing sugar or pour a little sugar syrup over the rice cakes before serving.
[Note]
1. Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.
2. The size of egg used is about 60g (includes shell) unless otherwise stated.Labels: Asian Pastries
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Taiwanese Pineapple Shortbreads 鳳梨酥
I love to eat Taiwanese Pineapple Shortbreads. They are quite similar to the Pineapple Tarts of Malaysia or Singapore.
The only differences are that they are moulded shortbreads, usually square in shape (see the photo below of my Apple and Strawberry Shortbreads I baked last year for Mid-Autumn Festival), and their pineapple filling tastes milder and not as sharp because it includes winter melon. Some commercial fillings from Taiwan do not even contain pineapple, just winter melon flesh with pineapple essence!
I first learnt about making Taiwanese Pineapple Shortbreads from the Taiwanese website, 克萊兒的點心小棧, ooh about 4 or 5 years ago. The one recipe for the pastry that I used ever since to make them is posted there together with a very delicious pineapple filling also on that website. It is very short-textured and crumbles easily as soon as you bite into it, and the best shortbreads I have ever tasted. However the one shortcoming of that recipe is you must use the square moulds to bake them, or else the shortbreads will flop out of shape in the oven. And where can you buy the moulds? Only in Taiwan (maybe also in Hong Kong), I'm afraid. In the beginning, I even tried to make my own moulds using thick layers of aluminium foil… Then I was lucky a very kind boardmate there gave me a set of moulds as present all the way from Taiwan, so I can bake them whenever I wanted without having to resort to making the moulds as well. Another way to overcome the lack of moulds is to use tall-ish straight-edge metal cookie cutters to bake them. However you need one cutter for each shortbread you want to bake, so that means you need to not only be able to find the metal cookie cutters (which is hard in itself as most cookie cutters are made in plastic nowadays), but to get at least 20 of them for a comfortable bake.
Well, I was mucking around with baking these shortbreads a few days ago and came up with this recipe that you can shape using one cookie cutter and bake without the mould. Actually I made the pineapple filling a couple of months ago when I had an excess of winter melon, thinking that I was going to make these shortbreads for the Mid-Autumn festival a few weeks back as they were also one type of mooncakes served in Taiwan. However I ended up not making them for the festival and the filling is taking up spaces in my refrigerator. So I decided to make them now and did a bit of experimenting at the same time. I took my pastry recipe for making my Mango Tarts and adjusted it as I was very happy with the texture of those miniature tarts last time I made them. I crossed my fingers and baked them. I was prepared for the shortbreads to flop somewhat out of shape as they were quite 'tall'. Well, what do you know, they actually stood their ground in the oven and came out looking quite respectable indeed. OK, without the assistance of the moulds, they don't have sharp edges but at least they retained the shapes of the mould I used to shape them.
So for all of you who want to try baking these delicious Taiwanese Pineapple Shortbreads but without access to the moulds, here's my recipe for baking them using just one cookie cutter instead. Here I have used the flower shape cookie cutter of about 4.5cm across and 1.5cm tall to make them, so the amount indicated for each shortbread is based on this size. You can use whatever shapes of cookie cutters you desired, eg. heart-shaped, round-shaped, square-shaped, just don't try to use cutters with complicated shapes which will make it too difficult to shape the shortbreads.
Makes approx. 30 - 32 shortbreads.
[Ingredients]
Pastry:
240g plain flour, sifted
60g vanilla custard powder, sifted
pinch salt
50g icing sugar, sifted
180g ghee
1 egg yolk
Pineapple Filling:
1 x 440g-can sliced pineapple in natural juice
500g grated winter melon 冬瓜 or spaghetti melon 魚翅瓜
200g white sugar
200g maltose
pinch salt
1 - 2 clove 丁香 (optional)
http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/
[Preparation]
Pineapple Filling:
1. Drain the sliced pineapple and reserve the natural juice. Grate the sliced pineapple.
2. Put the grated pineapple, juice, grated winter melon and clove in a saucepan and cook over medium to high heat to reduce the juice. When the mixture is quite dry, add the sugar, maltose and salt, and cook over low heat until the mixture is sticky and leave the side of the pan when you give it a stir. You must try to give the mixture a stir intermittently during the cooking period to prevent mixture burning on the bottom of the pan. Remove clove and cool. The mixture can be chilled in an airtight container for at least a couple of months in the refrigerator, or frozen for even longer period. Just remove however much you need to make the pineapple shortbreads, and store the rest back into the refrigerator for next time.
Pastry:
1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Cream ghee and egg yolk briefly. Add sifted flour, salt, custard powder and icing sugar. Knead into a soft and pliable dough.
2. Divide dough into approximately 15 to 20g pieces and divide the Pineapple Filling into approximately 15g pieces, or adjust according to the size of your cookie cutter. Wrap each portion of the filling inside each piece of dough. Round into a ball shape. Repeat with the rest of the dough pieces and filling portions.
3. Use your cookie cutter to shape the wrapped dough pieces. Place the round dough inside the cookie cutter on an ungreased baking sheet. Press down with the heel of your palm to make the dough fit into the cookie cutter shape. Carefully remove the cookie cutter. Finish moulding the rest of the wrapped dough pieces.
4. Bake for about 18 minutes (also depending on the size of your shortbreads), or until the shortbreads are light golden brown. Cool on the tray for about 10 minutes as the shortbreads are very fragile at this stage. Then use a flat spatula to remove the shortbreads to a wire rack to finish cooling. Store in airtight container.
[Note]
1. Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.
2. The size of egg used is about 60g (includes shell) unless otherwise stated.Labels: Asian Pastries, Mooncakes
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Sardine Puffs / Epok-Epok Sardin
To tell you the truth, I have never bought or tasted Sardine Puffs back in Malaysia. So it was always with curious interest when I read about articles regarding Sardine Puffs on the net.
The only recipe I could find is on The Star Online's Kuali page. That recipe uses the Chinese puff pastry to make the puffs. Having done quite a lot of Chinese puff pastry stuffs the last few weeks, I was not too keen about making another snack using this pastry. Seeing the big tin of ghee on the counter in my kitchen - went crazy a few weeks ago in preparation for making mooncakes, I bought a 1.8kg tin of ghee - I thought I might as well use that to make the puffs. So what about trying the Malay-style epok-epok with shortcrust pastry using ghee instead.
As for the filling, I thought with just sardines in the filling is a bit plain, so I decided to add canned prawn sambal to the filling to make it more of a Malaysian flavour. I must say I was very pleased with the result, the prawn sambal definitely gave the filling a lift with just a hint of mild chilli taste. For those of you who prefer a hotter flavour, you could probably add some chilli paste or chilli sauce to the filling as well. Even though I have a little problem with my trial-and-error shortcrust pastry - it was too crumbly in the beginning and I had to salvage it by adding water two more times before it could be rolled out successfully - thankfully it finally ended up triumph with a very short-textured like the curry puff pastry I used to eat back home.
Makes approx. 38 puffs (using 8.5cm round cutter).
[Ingredients]
Rich Shortcrust Pastry:
600g (4 cups) plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 - 2 tablespoon(s) caster sugar
250g ghee
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons lemon juice
80-100ml cold water, or adjust as necessary
Sardine Sambal Filling:
215g canned Sardines in Tomato Sauce (Ayam brand)
160g canned Prawn Sambal (Yeo's brand)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon cooking oil
2 tablespoons plain flour
http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/
[Preparation]
Sardine Sambal Filling:
1. Remove bones from sardines, mash and combine back into the tomato sauce. Add prawn sambal.
2. Heat oil in a wok and saute chopped onion and garlic. Add the combined sardine and prawn sambal mixture and cook until the sauce dries up a bit. Cool.
3. Once cold, stir in flour and mix in well - this is to prevent the puffs from getting soggy due to too wet a filling.
Rich Shortcrust Pastry:
1. Mix plain flour, salt and sugar together. Add in ghee at room temperature (soft but make sure not melting - this is for cold and mild weather situation, in extreme hot weather you may need to use chilled ghee) and rub in until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Mix in lightly beaten eggs and lemon juice. Slowly add water and knead lightly until the dough comes together and is pliable, you may need more or less water depending on your flour absorption capability. Wrap the dough in cling film and put into the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
2. Roll the chilled dough out to about 3mm thickness. Use an 8.5cm cutter to cut out round pastry (of course you can use cutter up to 10cm if you wish to make bigger puffs). Put about 2 teaspoons filling in the middle of each pastry, fold the pastry over into half-moon shape. Seal and pleat into rope edges.
3. Heat frying oil to about 175°C and deep-fry the puffs until golden brown.
[Variation]
Sardine Toast
With the leftover filling, I made this Sardine Toast, hmmm, yummy. Just spread a thick layer of the Sardine Filling on a piece of bread, sandwich with another piece of bread, then shallow-fry in a pan with some cooking oil until golden brown - voila, my spicy Sardine Toast!
[Note]
1. Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.
2. The size of egg used is about 60g (includes shell) unless otherwise stated.Labels: Asian Pastries
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Aromatic Puffs 香餅、馬蹄酥
Alrighty, here we go again… This is my latest version of the
Savoury Sweet Patties (I’ll refer to them as Aromatic Puffs from here on).
Well, finally something at least resemblance to what I remembered them to taste like… Mind you, I haven’t tasted them for almost five years, and at that time I haven’t had a clue about making Chinese Puff Pastry snacks, so have never actually paid much attention to details regarding what actually go into them, ingredients for filling, I mean. My thanks must go to Florence of Do What I Like for giving me feedbacks about the puffs after my last attempt, which were valuable to me in trying to improve these puff.
So in making this version of these puffs, I based it on being soft, sweet and slightly chewy for the filling and no glaze on the pastry itself before being baked. I managed to get all these qualities into this version, so I’m quite pleased with the result! The only thing is that, I understand the filling should be gooey and liquidy just after baking from the bakeries (I could not confirm that myself as I have never seen or tasted them freshly baked myself) – well, I did not managed that with this version – the filling is quite solid even straight after baking, but still soft and chewy…
Makes approx. 15 puffs.
[Ingredients]
Pastry:
Same as before but adjust to make 15 portions.
Filling:
100g brown sugar
30g maltose
20ml shallot-flavoured oil (oil from frying the shallot)
5 tablespoons (abt 50g) cooked glutinous rice flour
2 tablespoons (abt 20g) cornflour
60ml water
1 tablespoon fried shallot, pounded
1 teaspoon black sesame seeds, pounded
http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/
[Preparation]
Filling:
Mix together to obtain a soft dough. Divide into 20g pieces (about 15 portions).
[Note]
Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.Labels: Asian Pastries
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Golden Yolk Puffs 蛋黃酥 & Mandarin Pair Puffs 鴛鴦餅
Golden Yolk Puffs (蛋黃酥) and Mandarin Pair Puffs (鴛鴦餅, the mandarin pair as in a pair of mandarin ducks
, represented by the combination of a dark-coloured and light-coloured fillings, also one salty and one sweet – a yin and a yang) are both Taiwanese-style mooncakes. They are the Chinese puff pastry typed mooncakes with red bean paste fillings combined with salted duck egg yolks (for Golden Yolk Puffs) or rice-cakes (for Mandarin Pair Puffs). Once wrapped up and baked, the combined fillings represent a bright moon (the yolk or the rice-cake) shining in a clear night sky (the red bean paste).
Mooncakes are eaten during the ‘Mid-Autumn Festival’ (中秋節) by the Chinese, the festival falling every year on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month (it falls on September 18th this year) in the Chinese calender. The mid-autumn signifies the harvesting of grains in the Chinese history, and also the gathering of family during the harvest, represented by the full moon (a complete family or 團圓 in Chinese) on the day.
Then there is the legend of Chang-E (pronounced as chang-eh) and her ascension to the moon (嫦娥奔月). There are a couple of different versions to the legend, but the popular one goes like this. Once upon a time, there appeared 10 suns in the sky, shining down on earth and drying everything up. A hunter by the name of Hou-Yi shot down 9 suns to rescue the earth and became a hero. He then married a girl by the name of Chang-E and lived happily for a while. One day Hou-Yi met a priest while hunting and the priest, being thankful for him shooting down the 9 suns, offered Hou-Yi an immortal pill. Hou-Yi in turn gave the pill to his wife for safe-keeping. However one of Hou-Yi apprentices decided to steal the pill for himself. He forced Chang-E to produce the pill while Hou-Yi was out hunting one day. In desperation and unable to fight him off, Chang-E swallowed the pill to prevent the evil apprentice from getting it. She became immortal and rapidly ascended into the sky towards the moon. It happened on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month. Hou-Yi would then worship the moon every year on the day in remembrance of his wife. It is said that every year on this day, if you look carefully at the moon, you would see the image of Chang-E there. This romantic legend passed down generation by generation and the moon became associated with the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Traditionally, Chinese celebrated the day not only by eating mooncakes, but also activities like moon viewing (賞月), moon worshipping and offering (祭月﹑拜月), and lantern display (賞燈). Todays, mooncakes come in many different guises, from the Cantonese-style in the south to the Beijing-style towards the north. The most popular would have to be the Cantonese styled baked mooncakes, which could be square or round in shapes. The baked puff pastry styled is the new variant of the mooncakes from the Su-Zhou (蘇州) and Chao-Zhou (潮州) regions, of course traditionally would be pan-fried or deep-fried rather than baked. Then the newest incarnation of the mooncakes is the snowskin mooncakes, which only appeared as recently as ten or twenty years ago.
Adapted from the recipe ‘蛋黃酥’ in ‘精緻點心DIY’ by 游純雄 and 王志雄, published by 暢文出版社, 1998 (2002 reprint edition), and from the recipe ‘鴛鴦餅’ in ‘中式點心DIY’ by 沈鴻典, published by 暢文出版社, 2000 (2003 reprint edition).
Makes 20 puffs (10 of each).
[Ingredients]
Chinese Puff Pastry – Water Dough:
225g plain flour
pinch salt
80g ghee, lard or shortening
50g icing sugar
120ml lukewarm water, or adjust as necessary
Chinese Puff Pastry – Short Dough:
170g plain flour
40g cornflour
100g ghee, lard or shortening
For Golden Yolk Filling:
250g Red Bean Paste
5 salted duck egg yolks
1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine
For Mandarin Pair Filling:
250g Red Bean Paste
Rice-Cake:
35g reduced-salt butter, melted
50g icing sugar
35g cooked glutinous rice flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
10g (1 tablespoon) milk powder
60ml water
To Finish:
1 egg yolk, beaten for glazing
1 tablespoon black or white sesame seeds, for sprinkling as topping
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[Preparation]
For Golden Yolk Filling:
1. Toss salted duck egg yolks in rice wine then steam for 10 minutes. Cool and cut each egg yolk in half.
2. Divide the red bean paste into 10 equal portions.
3. Wrap each half of the yolk inside each portion of the red bean paste. Cover and chill until ready to use.
For Mandarin Pair Filling:
1. Mix all the rice-cake ingredients together. The dough will be very wet in the beginning, stir vigorously with a spoon until it comes together and forms into a soft dough. Divide the dough into 10 equal portions.
2. Divide the red bean paste into 10 equal portions.
3. Wrap each portion of the rice-cake inside each portion of the red bean paste. Cover and chill until ready to use.
Chinese Puff Pastry – Water Dough:
Mix all ingredients to form a soft dough, you may need to adjust the amount of water depending on the water absorbency of the flour used. Knead until smooth. Wrap in cling film and set aside for 15 - 20 minutes before using.
Chinese Puff Pastry – Short Dough:
Mix all ingredients to form a soft dough. Knead until the dough has approximately the same pliability/malleability as the Water Dough.
To make Chinese Puff Pastry:
Divide the Water dough and the Short Dough respectively into 20 equal portions. Take one portion of the Short Dough piece and wrap it inside a Water Dough piece. Roll the combined dough piece out into a thin flat sheet using a rolling pin. With your hand, roll the thin sheet up, Swiss-roll styled, into a short cigar shape. Turn the cigar 90° so that one of the round ends faces you. With the rolling pin, roll it out into a flat sheet again. Then roll it up Swiss-roll styled again. Round the roll-up dough piece into a ball. Repeat with the rest of the dough pieces until you get 20 combined dough balls.
To make Puffs:
Preheat oven to 200°C. Roll out or press each dough ball into a round flat disc, with the outer edges slightly thinner than the centre. Wrap each portion of the filling inside each portion of the flat dough. Seal up tightly by pressing the edges together to enclose the filling. Place the puff, seal side down on a baking sheet. Glaze with egg yolk wash. Sprinkle a little sesame seeds on top of the Golden Yolk Puffs (to differential them from the Mandarin Pair Puffs). Repeat with the rest until finished. Bake for about 18 minutes, or until golden in colour.
[Note]
1. Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.
2. The size of egg used is about 60g (includes shell) unless otherwise stated.Labels: Asian Pastries, Mooncakes
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