Curry Potato Bun

Little girl able to take spicy food now, when I told her I was going to bake her some curry potato buns, she was very delighted.

For the bread dough, I used this recipe, as for the filling, I just simply stir-fried the following ingredients together.

Curry filling ingredients


2 medium size potatoes, cubed & steamed
1 onion, chopped
100g minced pork
1 tbsp curry powder
pinch of salt

The buns were very soft, but I made a mistake of didn't put in more salt, these buns would be marvelous if they were bit more salty.

Look at my wrapping skill, totally failed, out of 12 buns, I had 5 with open mouth :(

Baked Spring Onion Mantou

I had this mantou in yesterday's bento, sorry for the delay of the recipe as I was terribly tire after a busy day yesterday, hit the sack earlier than usual.

I gotta the recipe from 周老师的美食教室, the minute I saw her recipe on this baked mantou, I quickly wrote down and awaiting for the chance to test out.  As we had to attend my nephew Y's mini presentation at his kiddy on Sun, I didn't get to bake anything for our breakfast, thus I decided to prepare this baked mantou at Sun evening, so that we able to have some fresh bakes for breakfast on Mon.  I used only 1/3 of ingredients based on the original recipe.

Ingredients
Yield: 8 mantou

100g water
1 tsp instant yeast
200g all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp sugar
1/8 tsp salt
3/4 tbsp oil

Filling:
2 stalks spring onion
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp fried garlic

1. Mix all ingredients together forming a smooth dough, let it proof for 1 hour (optional) I left it rest in the fridge for the entire night
2. Roll the dough flat and smooth
3. Spread the filling mixture evenly onto the dough, roll the dough up and let it rest for 10 minutes
4. Pour some oil onto baking tray, slightly roll the dough longer, cut into 8 pieces, place them on the baking tray, let proof for 20-30 minutes
5. Preheat oven at 200C, bake for 10 minutes, off heat, do not remove from oven, let it continue baking with remaining heat for further 10 minutes

These are how they look b4 proofing and baking

Look at how pretty it turned after baking, love the golden brown color :)

I tell you, these mantou are very yummy if u adore spring onion and garlic, boy, they smell and taste so good, soft at the center and crisp at the outer layer 内软外酥, yum!  The only downside is they are pretty oily, if u are controlling your diet, then I'm sorry, you have to forgo this recipe :p

Chicken, Mushroom and Egg Bao

Little girl wanna have dai bao 大包 instead of char siu bao, thus made her these.

Ingredients
1 whole chicken drumstick, minced
5 small dried shiitake mushrooms
2 hard-boiled eggs, quartered

Seasoning:
1 tsp oyster sauce
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp water
pinch of pepper

1 stalk spring onion, diced
1 tsp corn flour

1. Soak shiitake mushrooms til soft, cooked them in pre-soaked water for 10 minutes.  Marinate with a dash of soy sauce once cool
2. Marinate mince chicken with seasoning.  Add in diced spring onion and corn flour before wrapping
3. Wrap a tablespoon of chicken mixture, a shiitake mushroom and a quarter of hard-boiled egg into bao dough (please read here for bao dough recipe)
4. Let proof for 40 minutes
5. Steam on medium fire for 15 minutes
6. Serve while warm

Out of these 5 baos, I managed to get 1/2 from little girl only, she had 1 for tea, 1 and half for dinner, left 2 for the breaky and bento 2moro.  She loves it!

Cha Shao Bao 叉燒包

叉燒包，誰愛吃剛出籠的叉燒包.... 

Hahaha....  The song have been singing in my head ever since I had cha shao bao included in my to-do list :)  But the one kept singing to me was 周潤發 Chow Yun Fat, I couldn't locate the version he sang at YouTude, thus put this Stephen Chow 周星馳 version up for everybody to get a good laugh :p  Hope u enjoy it :)

The 1st batch of cha shao bao

Ok now, back to my cha shao bao (aka char siu bao), ugly lookiing aren't they, my wrapping skill is really really terrible, sigh....

I followed Carol's recipe almost to the dot, only cut down slightly on the char siu stuffing site as I had lesser char siu than she requested.

Char siu stuffing (Yield 10 baos)
Ingredient:
120g char siu, diced (small but able to chew on)
1 stalk green onion, cut into 1" length
1 clove garlic, sliced thinly
25g low protein flour
20g vegetable oil
120ml water

Seasoning:
1 tbsp ketchup
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp sugar
1/2 tbsp sesame oil

1. Heat the pan with vegetable oil, stir fry spring onions and garlic til fragrant.  Remove cooked spring onion and garlic.
2. Put in flour, cook in low heat til mix evenly with oil
3. Slowly pour in water in a few addition til forming a glue type mixture
4. Pour in seasoning, cook for 1 - 2 minutes
5. Add in char siu, stir well and cook for another 2 minutes
6. Let cool before wrapping into bao

Bao dough (Yield 15)

Ingredients:

200g old mantou dough  *see below for recipe

300g low protein flour

1/2 tsp instant yeast

130g milk

70g sugar

1/8 tsp salt

1. Mix all ingredients together, knead for 8 - 10 minutes or til forming a soft and non-sticky dough
2. Sprinkle with water, cover with a wet cloth, let it proof for 2 hours or until double its size
3. Once proofed, knead the dough for a while, then separate into 15 balls (approximately 40g each)
4. Wrap char siu stuffing into dough, put on a piece of baking paper
5. Let proof for 40 minutes
6. Steam on medium fire for 15 minutes
7. Serve while warm

Old mantou dough

Ingredients:

120g normal flour

1/2 tsp instant yeast

80ml water

pinch of salt

1. Mix everything in a bowl, knead until forming a soft dough
2. Store in a covered container in room temperature for 6 - 8 hours or put in fridge overnight
3. May keep in freezer if not using it, just defrost in room temperature before using

They r not fluffy like restaurant's but soft and yum, hubby and me had it for tea and dinner

(the better looking char siu bao)

Pls look at this ugly bao, it was the 1st I wrapped, even little girl shake her head too after seeing me struggling while wrapping in the stuffing

The 2nd batch, better looking, phew...

but look here, the filling spilled, aiyoh!

You may be wondering what did little girl eat while we were devouring these char siu bao, she requested for dai bao 大包, thus I made her a few with chicken filling, u may check out the recipe here.

Steamed Pork & Cabbage Bao 菜肉包

Been thinking of trying out some bao for very long time, it was quite a last minute when I decided to make these bao yesterday. We decided to start doing it only at around 4pm, I handled the bao dough kneading part whereas mum fried the pork, mushrooms and cabbage fillings.

I got the recipe from a vegetarian cookbook I bought sometimes ago, mum modified the filling as we preferred having some meat yesterday :p

I didn't hand kneaded the dough, threw all the ingredients into the mixer to complete the job. The dough looked very rough at the beginning, I added about 60ml more water into the dough, after kneading for another 10 minutes, it turned soft.

Folding the fillings into the dough was a tough job, most of the time I just couldn't close up the opening properly and the juice/sauce kept flowing thru the opening as I pressed more, sigh... tough!

Sis handled the steaming part, she put in the 1st batch, when it was time to off the fire & opened the lid of the wok, she gave a loud scream, when I rushed out to see what happened, the baos were all almost doubling their size!

B4 stuffing the bao into my mouth, I remembered Ohbin (Nicole Lee) mentioned that u may call the bao successful unless u able to peel the skin, so here u can see, I able to peel the skin nicely, oh ho... I'm smiling from ear to ear...

I tell u, those fillings were so delicious! As for the bao, I would say it tasted good while it was still hot/warm, as it was Q, don get me wrong, they were not hard, just dense, but the bau didn't stick to teeth while savoring it, so still consider a slight success.

Mum said with a little extra water, the dough will be perfect, I think I will rather try out Carol's recipes (this or this) next time.

Made 2 bunnies with cheese filling for little girl, she & the cousin (SKY) colored the eyes & nose, yeah, it was a mess. She said they were delicious and wanna me to make again :)

Pan Fried Baos 生煎包

Have u ever eaten this soft at the top & crisp at the bottom type of bao? I don remember where did I 1st eat this, HK? Shanghai? Taipei? I just remember they r very delicious and I'm dying to try cooking it myself for a very long time, but couldn't pull the guts together til this morning.

I saw the recipe at Florence's Do What I Like, after comparing it with Carol's and Angie's, I decided to put my hands on Florence's.

Ingredients

Dough 1:

100g plain flour (I used bluekey brand pao flour)

1/4 tsp salt

1 tbsp oil

45ml boiling water

10ml - 15ml water (to regulate dough, I didn't add this as I find my dough enough with the boiling water)

Dough 2:

160g plain flour (I used bao flour)

40g cake flour (I used superfine flour)

1 tbsp sugar

3g instant yeast

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp oil

105ml water

Frying mixture:

230ml water

2 tbsp flour

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1. Mix all items for dough 1 together using a pair of chopsticks. If dough is too dry add in some water. Leave to cool
2. Mix all items for dough 2 together til u get a smooth dough. Rest dough for 20 minutes
3. After 20 minutes, knead dough 1 and dough 2 together. Rest dough for 20 minutes.
4. Divide dough into 20g pieces. Roll into flat round disk of about 8 - 9cm in diameter. Wrap in 1 tbsp full of pork filling
5. Heat a little oil in a flat based frying pan, arrange the baos in the pan and fry for 1 minute on medium low heat
6. Pour in the frying mixture, make sure the baos are at least 30% but not more than 50% submerged in the frying mixture. Cover the pan with a lid til the frying mixture has dried up. Half way through the frying process, remove the lid and sprinkle some sesame seeds onto the sticky baos

Pork Filling:

150g minced pork

1 tsp sugar

1/2 - 3/4 tsp salt or 1/2 tsp salt + 1/4 tsp chicken stock powder

1 tbsp soy sauce

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1 - 2 tsp oil (I used 1 tsp fried garlic oil & 1 tsp corn oil)

1 tbsp water or chicken stock

1 tsp Chinese wine (I used ginger wine)

pinch of pepper

some grated ginger (omitted as no ginger)

some minced garlic

a) 200g Chinese cabbage, diced

b) 1.5 tsp corn flour (I used potato starch as I couldn't locate the bag of corn flour)

c) 1 - 2 stalks scallion, thinly sliced (used the chopped spring onions I stocked in the freezer)

1. Cook the diced cabbage in hot boiling water for 1 - 2 minutes. Drain and leave to cool. (I lightly squeezed out the water from the cabbage)
2. Mix all items in the pork filling together except a, b & c, stir with a pair of chopsticks till mixture is sticky and paste like. Add in a & b. Chill in the fridge til ready to use. Add in c only when u are ready to wrap the baos

This was the 2nd batch I cooked, we emptied the 1st batch so fast that I totally forgot of capturing a pic

I'm so satisfy with the baos as they r just like what Florence promised: the dough is soft but 'Q' (springy) and the meat filling is very juicy.

Little girl ate 3 (in 1 go!) for her lunch, and 2 after her pre-school, as for me, I lost count, ate so many of it, keep popping 1 into mouth whenever I walked to the kitchen (intensionally or accidentally, I can't figure it out)!