Chee Cheong Fun/Steamed Rice Rolls

One breakfast that I miss a lot from home is Chee Cheong Fun. Oh we can readymade CCF from the Asian supermarket but taste and texture is somehow not right. I like the one served at the dim sum place but it came with fillings which I like but sometimes I like it just plain and serve it with some sweet sauce.

I’ve tried making it before but not too happy with the results. So after tweaking and trying it out a few times I think I almost got it right. It is very close to the results that I wanted. It has a much softer, thinner, smoother and right texture. I also added a bit of spring onions to it for some color and flavor.

Pork and Shrimp Shumai

Non - halal

Shumai is a type of Chinese dumpling, often associated with Cantonese cuisine. The half wrapped dumpling is filled with pork and shrimp and then steamed. You can find it serve at all dim sum restaurants.

I miss the Shumai from Malaysia which if full flavor and juicy when you bite into it. The shumai here is not very good. They were way too huge and don’t taste very good. I find some of it was too dry which I suspect they were being steam over and over again before serving it to the customers. That is why I hardly order it when I have dim sum. I’ve eaten a very good one though but it was in New York. So the best thing to do is make it myself. It was pretty good and the taste of this will do for me until my next trip home.

Steamed Pan Fried Buns

The first time I tried this type of bun was in New Zealand. My good friend Shereen took me to a tiny Asian restaurant and they serve this type of buns and they were really good. I tried making it at home and they turn out pretty well. The filling of the buns are raw and you have to pan fried and steam cook them at the same time. It is very much like dumplings or gyoza. The dough of these buns is slightly different from the normal steamed buns. It has thinner and chewy dough. I like it a lot as the fried bun has a crispy golden brown bottom and serve with Chinese black vinegar dip but I just like it as it is. I am surprise Carlos like this too as normally he is not very adventurous enough to try out new food. I made some with sesame bottom but you can make it plain if you like.

Rose Shape Steamed Buns

I love making home-made buns and usually make a large batch of it and freeze them up. The filling can be savory or sweet and it all depends on what I have in hand or sometimes just some plain ones like these to eat it with some stew pork. I am not too comfortable eating store bought buns or mantau as I know they put ammonia and other additives to it in order to keep them soft. No doubt these buns do harden a bit when it cools down but you can always steam them up again before you eat it. They are as good as new. These soft and fluffy steamed buns can be eaten plain, with your favorite spread or with any gravy. They are best served hot, straight out from the steamer.

Fried Dumplings with Honey Mayo Dipping Sauce

This is one of dim sum favorite and it is usually served with mayo dipping sauce. For 4 pieces it cost around US$3.00 which I think it is too expensive. It is not difficult to make it yourself and with a few ingredients and a few bucks you can feed the whole family. It usually made from shrimps but you can be creative with the filling. I added some ground pork to it but it can be any combinations of your liking. I made these for our CNY dinner and we enjoyed it a lot. They are crispy on the outside and flavorful on the inside.

Chinese Baked BBQ Meat Buns

I made these for Carlos before I left for New York a few months ago. He loves these little BBQ pork buns. When he comes home from work he can just warm it up in the microwave oven and eat it with his salad. These types of buns are very popular at dim sum restaurant or Chinese Bakeries and it is filled with succulent sweet and savory BBQ pork filling. For these buns, I used some leftover BBQ/Char Siew that I made some time ago but you can always buy some BBQ pork from the Asian restaurant here in the US.

For these buns, instead of using my regular Japanese Sweet Bun Dough I used the recipe from Lena’s of Frozen Wings .

Chinese Chives Pocket

These chewy and crispy pockets are favorite Chinese snack here in the US. It is filled with ground meat, eggs and garlicky chives. They do sell frozen ones here but I like making these pockets myself as I can add whatever I like into the filling. You can always modify the filling according to your preference like adding tofu, mushrooms to it or omit the meat for vegetarian version. You can also add as much chives as you wish to it too. I even freeze some uncooked ones so I can have it anytime I wanted to. By the way, I will be away from my blog. My sister and I will be visiting Yellowstones , Salt Lake City , Mount Rushmore and Las Vegas . I won't be able to reply to all your comments as I am not taking my laptop with me. If there is anything urgent you can always email me as I will check it daily.

Steamed Red Bean Buns/Tau Sar Paus

I’ve been pretty busy for the past one week. Getting the house and guest room ready for my sister arrival. I was going through my pantry and found that I still have a can of red bean paste and it will be expiring soon and also some leftover pau flour. So the best thing to do with is to make some steamed buns, freeze it and when my sister is here we can have it for breakfast. I always prefer savory buns but I don’t mind having these red bean buns as the greedy me packed them up with a lot of red bean paste. I used the dough recipe from Cheah’s of No-Frills Recipes and very happy with the outcome. The dough is soft and easy to handle and it is simple to make too. You can use the same dough to make other sweet and savory fillings.

Spiral Shape Mantau-Day 17

I've been away for a few days so the previous posting were on schedule mode that is why I didn't reply to all your comments yet. Please give me some time and I will get to it soon. Anyway, I wanted to make bread of some kind with the Jelly mould but I can’t think of much other than doing something with Bao dough as I can steam it. This is what I can think of and they look pretty cute after steaming it. You can eat this steamed plain mantau with anything. It is sort of like mantau where you eat it with some stew meat. Actually this is the second time I am making this. The first time, I coiled the dough all the way down to the bottom of the mould and after steaming it they were huge! They look like a giant mantau. No very nice visually. So this time I made it smaller. Since I don’t have much time to prepare anything to eat it with, we just have this with some stir-fry chicken with jicama for our dinner.

Portuguese Egg Tarts

These are such a delightful little treats. Diana and I could never resist them whenever we see them at the Asian Bakery or at the dim sum place. I’ve made some egg tarts using the short-crust pastry before and this is the first time I am trying my hand in making Portuguese egg tart which have a flakier type of pastries. I went online to check on the recipe and most of them used store bought puff pastry for the crust which I am not too keen of using. In the end I used the recipe of a Dim Sum book I bought many years ago. The pastry turns out pretty flaky but I wish they were a bit tenderer. I think the next time I will try out Shirley of Kokken69 recipe for the pastry as they look so soft and tender.

I don’t think I will put up the recipe for the pastry here until I perfect it but I am posting up the recipe of the custard filling which I got it from Christine’s Recipe.

Steamed Meat Buns/Sang Yoke Bao

Each time I go to dim sum place I will definitely order their steamed baos/buns. The nearest Chinatown is about an hour away from my house so I don’t get to eat dim sum often. So when craving strike I will have to make it myself. I will usually use the Vietnamese pre-mixed bao flour but they are not always as fluffy as I wanted them to be. I tried making them from scratch a few times but the results were not good. The buns usually turn out yellowish and pretty chewy. I’ve been searching for a recipe that uses regular flour for the dough as most recipes I see used Hong Kong flour. I can’t seem to find them here in the US.

Finally I saw this posting from Vivian Phang Kitchen that used regular flour for her baos. I bookmarked them and finally get to try them out recently. It turns out pretty good when they were warm but slightly chewy texture when it cools down. Overall, I am satisfied with it for the time being until I get Diana to bring back a few kilograms of the Hong Kong flour for me from Malaysia.

Ham Sui Kok/Fried Crescent Dumplings

This is one particular item that I will order each time we have dim sum. These golden beauties are not admired for their filling but their pastry, it is deep-fried enough to give it a crispy light outside, soft-chewy inside with a delicious meat filling. I always wanted to learn to make this and finally get to do so with a friend of mine not too long ago. I never knew they were so easy to make. If you like this type of pastry I hope you try this out.

Ingredients for the fillings:

1 cup ground chicken or pork
3 dried shiitake mushroom – soaked until soft and diced small
1 small carrot – diced small
1 small onion – diced small
2 cloves garlic - chopped
2 green onions – diced small
A small bunch of chives – cut small
1/2 cup water
1 tsp cornstarch + 1 tbsp water

Chwee Kueh/Quar Ko Kueh/Steamed Rice Cake with Preserved Radish

We called this Quar Ko Kueh (in Hokkien) or Wun Chai Ko (in Cantonese) and it means small bowl cake, but some people called it Chwee Kueh (means water cake) you can read more about it here. This is a popular breakfast item in Malaysia and Singapore. The cakes itself are pretty bland, but with the sweet and salty topping it transformed the cake into a delectable morsel.

I remember during childhood we kids will wait for this old lady on her bicycle to come by late evening selling this. Beside this she sells the sweet version too. She will unmold the cake and passed it to us to put our own topping and we will put a lot of it. She will always scold us for putting way too much ha ha... For this kueh it is all about the topping. Those were the days. I really miss that.

Ingredients for the batter:

(A)
150 gram rice flour
4 tbsp tapioca flour
1 tbsp wheat starch
250 ml water

(B)
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp salt
360 ml water

Fried Radish Cake/Char Chai Tau Kueh

I have so many backlogs in my files. I have to really sit down one day and clear up everything. I’ve been so busy for the past weeks with cooking, baking, cleaning the house, etc. Now everything is back to normal again. Even the weather is getting better. So far no sign of any snow so no shoveling for this week. Thank God for that.

I cooked this dish many months ago and I just found the pictures in one of the many files. It is known as Char Chai Tau Kueh or Fried Radish Cake. This famous hawker food is made from steamed radish cake and then stir fried with pickle radish, bean sprout, chilies, chives and eggs. This dish is popular during Chinese New Year too and since it is still CNY I might as well post it here ;).

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups of diced radish cake – you can get the recipe here
2 cloves garlic – chopped
2 tbsp chopped preserved turnip (chai poh)
1 red chili – cut small
A handful of bean sprout
Small bunch of Chinese chives – cut into 1” lengths
1 egg

Homemade Steamed Rice Rolls/ Chee Cheong Fun

Chee Cheong Fun is a type of rice noodles roll or steamed rice roll. Commonly roll in round shape but some comes in square thin pieces. There are two types of chee cheong fun; one is the local (Malaysia/Singapore) kind which served with tim cheong (sweet bean sauce) and another one which is the Hong Kong style served at dim sum places with fillings like shrimps, roast pork or minced meat in it. Since I have some shrimps in the freezer I decided to try out the Hong Kong Style CCF.

Making CCF at home isn’t as difficult as I thought it might be. It turn out pretty well except I need to improved on my rolling skills. I should have let the CCF cools down a bit more before rolling it as you can see there are some cracks on the CCF. Nevertheless they were delicious.This recipe is adapted from here .

Chinese Crullers/Yau Char Kwai

Our group of Malaysian ladies attempted making Yau Char Kwai this month. We tried out two recipes and one turn out really well and one failed miserably. Not sure what went wrong with the failed recipe as we follow the ingredients and instructions to the T. Anyhow, we were glad Agnes Chang recipe turns out so well with less work and proofing time compare to the other one. The YCK were light with hollow texture on the inside. So the next time if we are going to make this again we will just stick to this recipe.

Wife Biscuit/Sweetheart Cake/Lao Por Peng

Wife Biscuit/Sweetheart Cake is a traditional Chinese pastry with flaky thin skin and the filling made with winter melon and sesame seeds. This pastry is originated from Hong Kong but now you are able to buy it from almost all the Chinese Bakery. So how does the name of this pastry come about? There are quite a few stories out there and one of them is this.

In ancient China, there was a poor couple. They adored and loved each other, staying in a small village. When a mysterious disease spread, the husband's father became very sick. Although they tried really hard to raise money to provide treatment for him, it wasn't enough. Sadly, the wife decided to sell herself as a slave, exchanging herself for her father-in-law's medicine. Once the husband learned about what his wife did, he made a cake filled with winter melon and with a crispy crust in honor of his wife. However, his cake became so popular that he was able to earn enough money to buy his wife back

I wanted to make this biscuit for the longest time but I can’t seems to find ‘koh fun’ here in the US until one of my blogger friend told me that I am able to get it from the Asian Store in PA. Making the pastry takes a bit of work but the end result was fantastic. The pastry is flaky and the filling has a great fragrant of sesame seeds and the right sweetness from the winter melon. This is really addictive that I don’t think you can stop by just eating one. Here is the recipe adapted from Corner Café with some minor changes.

Ingredients for Water Dough:

70g bread flour
70g  flour
25g caster sugar
55g  shortening
70ml water, adjust as necessary

Coconut Tarts

When I moved to the USA the first thing I look for was freshly grated coconut. Since growing up in Malaysia coconut play an important part in our cuisine. We use freshly grated coconut or coconut milk in our dessert and curries. Lucky I am able to get the frozen kind from the Vietnamese and Indian grocery store here.

Pan Fried Bean curd Rolls

Who can resist these crispy rolls? It is a must order dish for me if I go for dim sum restaurant. I just like the crispy skin made out of bean curd skin and the fillings of ground meat, carrot bits and crunchy water chestnuts. Since I still have bean curd skin leftover from my Yong Tau Foo I decided to make some.

Ingredients:

16-17 pieces of 5 1/2” x 3 1/2” bean curd skin
3 tbsp of flour + 4 - 5 tbsp of water – mix into a paste for sealing the rolls

Porcupine Lotus Paste Steamed Buns

On my last trip home I bought a lot of cooking and baking books. One of them is Vegetarian Dim Sum by Chin Mun Chong. I am not a vegetarian but the pictures of the dim sum inside the book look so good that I just have to get it. I decided to make the Porcupine Pao from the book. I just love the look of these buns, aren’t they cute? Carlos helps me to cut some of the prickles of the porcupine. For a first timer I think he did a pretty good job. The skin of the buns texture is very much like the flower mantau. It is kind of chewy and not too fluffy. As for the filling I used lotus paste but you can replace it with kaya or even red bean paste.

Since this is the first time I am trying out the recipe from the book so I am not sure how good they are so I decided to half the original recipe.

Ingredients:

300 grm bao flour or Hong Kong flour
5 grm baking powder
6 grm yeast
55 grm sugar
1 tbsp of shortening
115 ml water (I need about 145 ml)

Fillings:

Lotus Paste or red bean paste

* Few drop of red food coloring

1. In a mixing bowl, mix all the dried ingredients until well combined. Slowly add in the water (you might need more or less and it all depend on the flour) until it form into a dough. Then add in the shortening. Mix until smooth.
2. In the meantime, take a tbsp of the lotus or bean paste and roll it into a ball. Make about 12-13 pieces.
3. Cover the dough and let it rest at a warm place for 2 hours. After 2 hours. Divide the dough into 12-13 pieces. Roll the dough into round balls and wrap in the fillings.


Carlos shaping the prickles
4. Shape the dough into oval shape. Using a sharp scissors snip the top part of the dough to form prickles to shape as a porcupine. Put two red dots at the head of the porcupine to form the eyes. Put the bun on top of the greaseproof paper and set aside to proof for 20 minutes.
5. Prepare a steamer with rapid boiling water, add a few drop of white vinegar to the water and steam the buns for 8 minutes. Serve warm.

Note: If you can't find bao flour or Hong Kong flour you can always replace it with regular all purpose flour.