Bun Susi / Pan Susi
The first time I have ever heard of these buns was a recipe in Mrs Leong Yee Soo’s cookbook, ‘The Best of Singapore Cooking’. It stood out because of its name, Bun Susi… ‘Susi’, what does the name mean? Til this day I never found out… Does anyone know?
Aside from the curiosity of the name, I later discovered that this was actually an Eurasian snack from the Portuguese descendents, the Cristangs, of Malacca. In Mrs Leong’s book, it is translated as ‘Meat Buns’. So maybe ‘Susi’ is an Eurasian word for ‘meat’ or maybe ‘pork’, just my guess, who knows… By the way, I have also seen it written as Pan Susie or Pan Soo See, or even Susie Buns… ‘Susie’ could be a ‘beautified’ name, or is it just an incorrect spelling? Another curiosity is that the word ‘Pan’ is actually Spanish for ‘bread’ and not Portuguese, which is ‘Pão’!
I have wanted to try making this snack for a while now, but never got around to it. As I have never tasted it before, I wanted to search for another recipe to compare with the one in Mrs Leong’s book. After googling all over, I could only find one other recipe posted at Diana's Desserts Forum. So armed with both recipes, I mixed-&-matched and even threw in a few inspired ingredients to come up with my own version of Bun Susi!
Although, I had done it my own way, I still tried to keep at least to its authenticity. I have read in a few articles about Eurasian cuisine that this bun is made with sweet potato pastry. Now in Mrs Leong’s recipe, the pastry is made from pure sweet bun dough without the addition of sweet potato – probably a Nyonya adaptation of the recipe. The one from Diana's Desserts Forum does use sweet potato in making the pastry. I also did some more googling and found tons of recipes for Portuguese Sweet Bread (known as Massa Sovada or Pão Doce and they use mashed potato in their recipes). So I adapted them into my recipe as well – thus the addition of eggs in the pastry which is not used in the one at Diana's Desserts. As for the filling, I adapted the one in Mrs Leong’s book which is a pork based filling, since from what I’ve read most mentioned using pork as the filling, so I guess this is probably more authentic. I think maybe the chicken version is created for halal consumption. But then I could be wrong… that both types of meat are used traditionally.
The sweet potato pastry is really nice to eat with a hint of the sweet potato aroma as you bite into it. The filling is slightly on the sweet side with a peppery aroma, my own addition of a few extra spices made it really yummy. Luckily in comparing the recipes, I reduced the amount of ground pepper used in the filling, or I think it could have ended up being too overpowering. All in all, the taste came up triumph, I scoffed down 3 buns as soon as they came out of the oven! The only problem was my wrapping skill. Half of the buns split open along the seal after baking… Well more wrapping training needed for next time…
The sealed ends split open after baking.
Even without using the bread improver, and the buns were all made using hand power, they still stayed reasonably soft the next day… but I love to heat them up in the microwave for about 30 seconds before eating, so they become hot and soft again anyway…
Makes 24 buns.
[Ingredients]
Pastry:
500g bread flour
2 tablespoons milk powder
1 teaspoon bread improver (optional, I didn’t use)
1 sachet (7g) instant yeast
¼ teaspoon salt
60g caster sugar
100g steamed, mashed sweet potato
2 eggs
(In a coincidence, I cracked 2 eggs to use for this recipe and both are double-yolk!)
½ cup (approx. 125ml) lukewarm water
75g butter
1 extra egg, lightly beaten for glazing
Filling:
300g minced pork
125g potato, boiled then diced
1 tablespoon canola oil or lard
3-5 shallots, chopped
(I used 3 French échalotes, which are bigger than Asian shallots)
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
¼ teaspoon salt, or to taste
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon tapioca flour mixed with 2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon fried crispy shallots
Spices:
2 teaspoon ground coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, pounded
½ teaspoon ground turmeric
½ teaspoon ground white pepper
2 green cardamom pods, discard pods, use seeds only, pounded
¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg
http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/
[Preparation]
Filling:
1. Heat oil until hot in a wok. Sauté shallots and garlic until fragrant. Add all the spices, except nutmeg, and stir briefly. Add minced pork and stir-fry about 5 minutes. Add the diced potato and cook briefly.
2. Add light soy sauce, sugar, salt and water. Continue to stir-fry until the meat mixture is almost dry. Add nutmeg and fried crispy shallots. Pour in the tapioca mixture and cook 1 minute. Cool before using.
Pastry:
1. Sift bread flour, bread improver (if using), milk powder, salt and caster sugar onto the working surface. Add yeast and mix well. Form the flour mixture into a well. Add mashed sweet potato, lightly beaten eggs and enough lukewarm water to form into a soft dough. Knead for 10 minutes until smooth.
2. Knead in softened butter until incorporated. Form the dough into a round ball and let it rise until doubles in size (about 1 to 1½ hours in warm weather) in a large greased bowl, covered with cling wrap.
3. Punch down, knead briefly. Divide dough into 24 pieces (each about 40-45g). Form each into balls and let rest for about 10 minutes.
4. Flatten each dough ball and fill with about 2 teaspoons of the meat filling. Wrap into an oval shape.
5. Space the wrapped buns out on a greased tray, allowing room for expansion. Leave to rise, covered with cling wrap, for 20-30 minutes. Preheat oven to 190°C.
6. Glaze the buns and bake for 12-14 minutes, or until golden brown.
[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.
Aside from the curiosity of the name, I later discovered that this was actually an Eurasian snack from the Portuguese descendents, the Cristangs, of Malacca. In Mrs Leong’s book, it is translated as ‘Meat Buns’. So maybe ‘Susi’ is an Eurasian word for ‘meat’ or maybe ‘pork’, just my guess, who knows… By the way, I have also seen it written as Pan Susie or Pan Soo See, or even Susie Buns… ‘Susie’ could be a ‘beautified’ name, or is it just an incorrect spelling? Another curiosity is that the word ‘Pan’ is actually Spanish for ‘bread’ and not Portuguese, which is ‘Pão’!
I have wanted to try making this snack for a while now, but never got around to it. As I have never tasted it before, I wanted to search for another recipe to compare with the one in Mrs Leong’s book. After googling all over, I could only find one other recipe posted at Diana's Desserts Forum. So armed with both recipes, I mixed-&-matched and even threw in a few inspired ingredients to come up with my own version of Bun Susi!
Although, I had done it my own way, I still tried to keep at least to its authenticity. I have read in a few articles about Eurasian cuisine that this bun is made with sweet potato pastry. Now in Mrs Leong’s recipe, the pastry is made from pure sweet bun dough without the addition of sweet potato – probably a Nyonya adaptation of the recipe. The one from Diana's Desserts Forum does use sweet potato in making the pastry. I also did some more googling and found tons of recipes for Portuguese Sweet Bread (known as Massa Sovada or Pão Doce and they use mashed potato in their recipes). So I adapted them into my recipe as well – thus the addition of eggs in the pastry which is not used in the one at Diana's Desserts. As for the filling, I adapted the one in Mrs Leong’s book which is a pork based filling, since from what I’ve read most mentioned using pork as the filling, so I guess this is probably more authentic. I think maybe the chicken version is created for halal consumption. But then I could be wrong… that both types of meat are used traditionally.
The sweet potato pastry is really nice to eat with a hint of the sweet potato aroma as you bite into it. The filling is slightly on the sweet side with a peppery aroma, my own addition of a few extra spices made it really yummy. Luckily in comparing the recipes, I reduced the amount of ground pepper used in the filling, or I think it could have ended up being too overpowering. All in all, the taste came up triumph, I scoffed down 3 buns as soon as they came out of the oven! The only problem was my wrapping skill. Half of the buns split open along the seal after baking… Well more wrapping training needed for next time…
The sealed ends split open after baking.
Even without using the bread improver, and the buns were all made using hand power, they still stayed reasonably soft the next day… but I love to heat them up in the microwave for about 30 seconds before eating, so they become hot and soft again anyway…
Makes 24 buns.
[Ingredients]
Pastry:
500g bread flour
2 tablespoons milk powder
1 teaspoon bread improver (optional, I didn’t use)
1 sachet (7g) instant yeast
¼ teaspoon salt
60g caster sugar
100g steamed, mashed sweet potato
2 eggs
(In a coincidence, I cracked 2 eggs to use for this recipe and both are double-yolk!)
½ cup (approx. 125ml) lukewarm water
75g butter
1 extra egg, lightly beaten for glazing
Filling:
300g minced pork
125g potato, boiled then diced
1 tablespoon canola oil or lard
3-5 shallots, chopped
(I used 3 French échalotes, which are bigger than Asian shallots)
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
¼ teaspoon salt, or to taste
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon tapioca flour mixed with 2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon fried crispy shallots
Spices:
2 teaspoon ground coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, pounded
½ teaspoon ground turmeric
½ teaspoon ground white pepper
2 green cardamom pods, discard pods, use seeds only, pounded
¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg
http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/
[Preparation]
Filling:
1. Heat oil until hot in a wok. Sauté shallots and garlic until fragrant. Add all the spices, except nutmeg, and stir briefly. Add minced pork and stir-fry about 5 minutes. Add the diced potato and cook briefly.
2. Add light soy sauce, sugar, salt and water. Continue to stir-fry until the meat mixture is almost dry. Add nutmeg and fried crispy shallots. Pour in the tapioca mixture and cook 1 minute. Cool before using.
Pastry:
1. Sift bread flour, bread improver (if using), milk powder, salt and caster sugar onto the working surface. Add yeast and mix well. Form the flour mixture into a well. Add mashed sweet potato, lightly beaten eggs and enough lukewarm water to form into a soft dough. Knead for 10 minutes until smooth.
2. Knead in softened butter until incorporated. Form the dough into a round ball and let it rise until doubles in size (about 1 to 1½ hours in warm weather) in a large greased bowl, covered with cling wrap.
3. Punch down, knead briefly. Divide dough into 24 pieces (each about 40-45g). Form each into balls and let rest for about 10 minutes.
4. Flatten each dough ball and fill with about 2 teaspoons of the meat filling. Wrap into an oval shape.
5. Space the wrapped buns out on a greased tray, allowing room for expansion. Leave to rise, covered with cling wrap, for 20-30 minutes. Preheat oven to 190°C.
6. Glaze the buns and bake for 12-14 minutes, or until golden brown.
[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 Buns and Pancakes
posted by SeaDragon @ 6.4.07
7 Comments:
SD, this looks really good! I will try it someday for sure. :D
Hi SD, ur Bun Susi looks really delish!! I have a copy of Mrs Leong's cookbook, too - ive found some great recipes there, too but have yet to try this recipe. Never eaten Bun susi before either but ur pics looks so tempting tht I will probably try ur recipe in the near future. Btw, where do u buy bread flour in Oz? Do u buy Prima bread flour from the Chinese provison shops or do u use Baker's Flour from Coles Woolies? I find there is a subtle difference in texture, especially when I bake asian type of buns - where we want the buns to be soft n fluffy?
Melissa, Perth
Anh,
Thanks :)
Melissa,
Thanks :)
The bread flour I used was bought from Chinese supermarket as shown in the link below, as it is the one most commonly available near where I live:
http://homecookingclub.aceboard.com/227863-8382-2144-0-Flours-Starches.htm
SD your bun susi brought back my "first" job memory. Everytime when we need to do overtime, one of the senior staff will pack back plenty of susi buns during lunch time. At that time, I associated susi bun with buns with char siew fillings. :)
Edith,
Emm, that's very interesting. Char Siew as filling, wouldn't that become Baked Char Siew Pao, hehe! Maybe char siew filling is a better seller than plain minced pork filling :)
Hi, I was surprised and delighted to find an Eurasian dish posted here :) By the way, thought you might like to know that the name of the dish,"Pan Susi" is based on the localised Straits Malaccan Portuguese language and not from Portugal's Portuguese. Example Portugal calls "Bread" - Pao but Straits Potuguese calls them - Pan. "Susi" on the other hand means sister.
Cassie,
I'm so glad you took the time to explain the name to me. It clears up the mystery of the name which has baffled me since I first saw the recipe years ago, especially when different recipes spelled the name slightly differently. It makes sense now. Thanks again :)
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