Thursday, March 19, 2009

Chinese Steam Bun (包子)

Today it's my first time making steam chinese Bun (Curry Bao). I usually buy the instant Bun flour which it has all the flour mixture ready. However, I found the flavor and texture is not as good, therefore i decided to make the doug myself, the filling can be anything you like, i choose curry curry with potatoes and sweet pandan coconut jam (Kaya). for this time.. both taste really good and i feel happy and contented to see the bun made by myself..

Ingredients for dough:
3 cups of bread flour
1 packet of Rapid Rise Yeast (~2 tsp, 5g)
2 tsp of sugar
1 tsp of salt
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 1/8 cups of warm water (or milk)

mix all the dough ingredients together; knead the dough until it does not stick to your hand. . Set the dough aside at warm place to rise ~ 2hr (cover with wet kitchen cloth). The dough will rise double the original size. Punch the dough with your hand to release the air in the dough. Roll the dough and cut into small round pieces. The ingredients make ~ 20 buns.





Yummy Curry Chicken Bun ^@^

Monday, March 16, 2009

Cinnamon Bun








    I love cinnamon bun, we can buy it from the market or bread shop, however the bread seemed lack of ingredients and not so tasty, soft and mosit.. so i want try to make my own cinnamon bun this time. The bun looks sucessful, but it a bit hard at the edges, i search the internet and find out the reason of hard edge at outer layer may be due to over bake, to make the bun softer and moist, you can add more egg yolk, or reduce the baking time by 5 min, once remove from oven, brush it with melted butter and cover with aluminum foil to avoid the bun become dry.

    Here is the ingredigrents:

  1. 3 cups of bread flour or all purpose flour
  2. 3 tablespoon of sugar
  3. Half tsp of salt
  4. 1 1/2 tsp of instant dry yeast
  5. 1 cup of milk
  6. 1 stick of butter, melted, to add to dough
  7. 1/2 stick (4 tablespoon) of butter to spread on the flatter dough
  8. 1 egg
  9. 1/2 cup brown sugar
  10. 1 1/2 to 2 tablespoon of cinnamon powder

Mix all ingredient (1-8 )together with mixer or kneat by hand until it doesn't stick to your hand (refer to the Chinese steam bun picture), let it rest for 15-20 min. at warm place to let it rise. Roll the doug to flat rectangular (10'x15'), brush in 1/2 stick butter, spread on the cinnemon powder with brown sugar. Roll up the doug from the long end. Cut it into small piece, place to the baking pan, and let it sit for 20 min before turn on the oven to 375F to bake for15-20min.

Chicken Rice (海南鸡饭)

Ingredients:
1. One whole chicken
2. Ginger
3. Salt
4. Tomato/Cucumber
5. Fish souce
6. Soya souce
7. Oysater souce
8. Sesami oil
9. Green anion

Ginger Souce (to dip):
1. Grean anion
2. Ginger
3. Salt to taste
4. Cooking oil
* Blend the Ginger, green anion. Add oil and salt.

Chicken Souce:
1. Fish souce.1 tablespoon
2. Soya souce. 1 tablespoon
3. Sesame oil. 1/2 tablespoon
4. oyster souce 1/2 tablespoon


First put water to boil, put in whole chick (as shown in picture above) until water is almost cover the whole chicken. Switch to medium heat and cook for 10 min. Off the heat, let the chicken sit in the hot water for 45min.


Next, prepare the rice. Add the chicken broth, 4-6 slice of ginger, salt to taste.


Remove the chicken from the pot, dip the whole chicken in ice water until chicken is fully cooled (~10min).

Cut the chicken as desired size. You can remove the chicken bone, and garnish with green anion, tomato/cucumber. Add some vegetable ( lettuce/Choy sim/tomato/Cabbage/Bai cai) to serve with chicken soup.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Chicken Pie

Da ta.... this is my first time trying to make chicken pie, the pie crust turn out to be too flaky but overall it still taste really good, the creamy filling is really yummy!! I am so happy for the first trial, will definitely improve for 2nd trial.... yeh!!!




Ingredients (Creamy Filling):

  1. 500g chickeen, cubed
  2. 10 button mushroom, sliced
  3. 1 anion, chopped
  4. 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
  5. 1 carrot, sliced. (or frozen mix vegetable)
  6. chicken broth, 2 tsp
  7. 3 tsp plain flour
  8. 1 1/2 cup milk
  9. 1 small cube of butter
  10. salt & pepper to tas
  11. 1 egg for glazing

Put the butter in the pan, add garlic and anion and fry it to light brown, add in mix vegetable, salt and pepper, cook in meadium heat till bubbling. Add in shreded chicken, stir well and add chicken rother, milk and flour and cook till the souce become creamy

Pie doug:
  1. 2 cups of all purpose flour
  2. 1/4 cup cake flour
  3. 1/2 tsp salt
  4. 1 stick of butter (~100g)
  5. 1 stick of vegetable shortening
  6. 6 tsp cold water
  7. 1 1/2 tsp cidar vinegar

To make the doug:

Put the butter on a clean work surface and chop it roughly with a knife. Add the flour and salt on top and use a scraper or knife to cut the butter and flour together. When well combined, but still dry and rough, add the water, a small amount at a time, and mix well. Scrape the dough to the side and dust the work surface with flour. Roll out the crumbly dough into a 6- by 8-inch rectangle. Use a dough scraper or other flat surface to fold the two short edges of the rectangle to the center, then fold the bottom side over the top, as if you were closing a wallet. Turn the dough 90° and roll it out again to form a 6- by 8-inch rectangle. Repeat the folding process. You may need to dust the dough and counter with flour occasionally to keep it from sticking to the rolling pin. Place the dough in a plastic bag and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes.
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and repeat the roll and fold process two more times. At the end of the process, you'll be amazed at what a beautiful dough you have made. Seal it in plastic again and refrigerate for at least two hours. When you're ready to assemble the pot pie, roll the dough out to 1/8-inch thick and cut it to be slightly larger than the size of your baking dish. Lay the pastry on top and press along the edges of the dish to seal it.