Daring Cooks June (part two): We ate 'em!

So, the post that went up on the reveal day of June's Daring Cooks challenge was kind of sad, right? We (no, correction, Markus) prepared lovely Chinese dumplings with chicken filling, and then we both got sick and couldn't eat them. Thanks for all your well wishes in comments by the way!

But luckily the flu passed by quickly, and today, it was time to get some dumplings out of the freezer and steam them. We love our bamboo steamer (even if I have managed to give it a slightly pink hue by steaming radishes in it). After ten minutes of steaming the dumplings were done, and we ate them with a very tasty dipping sauce that I whipped together without paying any attention to measurements at all. It consisted of:

*mushroom soy
*red wine vinegar
*some liquid from one of those cans of candied ginger in syrup

The dumplings tasted delicious, but we thought the texture was a bit too tough. Maybe that's because they had been frozen? The filling was good - we both agreed it tasted Chinese which is a great thing in our book - but Markus admitted that he should have cut the ingredients finely by hand rather than being lazy and using a mixer (which he would have known had he only read the whole recipe! Sorry honey, just teasing you a little...).

Anyway, the dumplings were great! We are definitely keeping this recipe and will for sure return to it in the future, trying out other fillings - hand chopped then. :)

Thanks Jen for a great challenge and for sharing an old family recipe with us Daring Cooks!

Daring Cooks June: Chinese dumplings - a half finished challenge

This post will not turn out the way we had hoped, unfortunately. It's time to present the second ever Daring Cooks challenge, hosted by Jen of use real butter (love that name - butter is better!). She has chosen Chinese dumplings/potstickers as the challenge.

We were so excited about this challenge, given our recent infatuation with Chinese food and Dim Sum. We started to make plans about all the different fillings to make. But time flew, we were busy, but on Thursday, three days before the reveal, we were finally going to make the dumplings.

Enter the flu.

I felt like crap all day, so Markus volunteered to do the cooking on his own (I tried to give some helpful advice and ask what I should do, but he kept sending my fever-clogged body back to bed). And then, when he had pleated about 2/3 of the dumplings, he started feeling woozy too. Neither one of us felt like steamed chicken dumplings, so the ones that were ready got tossed into the freezer - thankfully this months challenge is freezable! We had some dough and filling left, but frankly it never got used.

So, our dumplings are sitting in the freezer, while we are under the down cover, freezing too. We'll of course make a follow-up post on how they tasted once we have cooked them. We'll give you the recipe for the filling we made here; for full instructions on how to make the dumplings (including different fillings and cooking methods) go to Jen's blog. For the dough we used the method of Jen's mom, which worked really well.

Markus made really pretty dumplings and he reported that they were easy to make. To see the creations of the other Daring Cooks who made it all the way through, visit the Daring Kitchen!

Thank you Jen for a really great challenge - we are definitely returning to this one once we've stopped shivering...

Chicken dumpling filling:
(enough for one batch of Jen's mom's dough)

200 g grilled chicken meat
40 g bamboo shoots (canned)
40 g water chestnuts (canned)
20 g fresh ginger (cleaned weight)
20 g mushroom soy
15 g sesame oil
1 tbsp rice flour (the recipe called for corn starch, but we were out...)

Chop the chicken and vegetables very finely - Markus used a mixer, because he missed the detail in the recipe which told us not to do this. He says it worked well, so go ahead and be lazy as well if you want to. :) Mix the wet ingredients with the rice flour, and add it - if you're using a mixer, take her for one more spin.

Fill the dumplings as per Jen's instructions. Now, we can't vouch for the taste of this, so unless you're feeling adventurous (in Hong Kong we found that Chinese eating is about being adventurous so feel free to be that way) you might want to wait until our update before heading to the kitchen.

Char Siu Bao - first attempt

As I hinted in the post about Char Siu there was more Chinese cooking coming up. With the left over BBQ pork we of course had to make Char Siu Bao: steamed buns with char siu filling. I actually didn't like those at first in Hong Kong (what was up with my taste buds then? Char Siu Bao is delicious!), so Markus always got them to himself. But they grew on me, and by the end they were one of my favorites, competing with chicken and glutinous rice in lotus leaves, and another steamed dumpling which I believe had pork in it plus some kind of nuts and vegetables, and was served with a super hot red dipping sauce. They can be seen in this picture (sorry it's a bit blurry) - if anyone can identify it and tell me exactly what's in them, pretty please leave a comment!



So, Char Siu Bao. We turned once again to The Chinese Kitchen by Deh-Ta Hsiung and a recipe for steamed buns (you'll get it below), and immediately encountered four problems:
1. The recipe called for dry yeast. I have never used that before so I was a bit apprehensive. I know some people are uncomfortable using fresh yeast, which I don't get - baking with fresh yeast is easy, just make sure the liquid isn't too hot. Turns out, using dry yeast was super easy too. Okay, problem solved. Problem number two was a bit tricker though...

2. We were almost out of flour, and it was raining cats and dogs, as the Brits say (could I please get a mixture of tuxedo cats, soft coated wheaten terriers and Whisky?), so another trip to the grocery store was not too appealing. But if you kind of filled the measuring cup and really shaked the bag to get every teeny grain of flour out, and also used some special bread flour with extra protein (= develops more gluten) that we also had to squeeze out every last bit of, we could get the correct amount. Almost. In hindsight, we should have gone to the grocery store. Keep reading and we'll tell you why.

3. The recipe said to use self-rising flour. We don't have that in Sweden, but a quick googling told me what amount of baking powder to add to the flour (it's 1½ tsp baking powder for one cup flour). With that out of the way, we turned to the biggest issue:

4. The Chinese Kitchen didn't tell us how to make Char Siu Bao. Of course we could have googled and for instance used this recipe but for some reason we didn't. Instead we said "well, the english version of the dim sum menu said that it's BBQ pork and oyster sauce in the filling, so let's go with that!" We cut up the left over Char Siu and added oyster sauce according to the "do you think this is enough? Well, how the hell should I know? Well, I don't know either. Ok, just a little bit more"-principle.

The dough was a charm to work with, and we got our buns to be quite pretty if I may say so myself. Wanna see 'em in all their pre-steamed glory?



After steaming and tasting, it turned out that problem two and four had impacted the end result quite significantly. First of all, appearance wise: the buns got way too shiny. I understand that it's probably hard to get that really white color with the kind of flour we have here, but I also think that the extra gluten might have impacted the color of the buns. It also affected the texture: the buns got a bit too rubbery and tough and didn't have that right "short" consistency. And then the filling. Well, that was just way too boring and flavorless. Next time I'll just send myself here, type in "char siu bao recipe" and I'm sure that we'll get a much better result.

It wasn't a complete failure, we still ate all of the buns (yes, six each, they were our dinner), and they didn't taste bad or even super far from the original (just pretty far...). But there was definitely room for improvement, and we'll for sure let you know how our next attempt turns out. Anyway, here's the recipe for the steamed buns. Just follow it closely (i.e. go to the grocery store if you don't have enough flour) and I'm sure they will turn out great!

Mantou (steamed buns)
From The Chinese Kitchen by Deh-Ta Hsiung

Makes about 24 buns (we halved the recipe and it worked well)

For the dough:
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp dried yeast
10 fl oz (3 dl) warm water
4 cups self-rising flour

Dissolve the sugar and yeast in the water and let it stand for 5-10 minutes until the mixture is frothy. Sift the flour into a bowl, the gradually stir in the liquid. The dough will be firm. Knead for 5 minutes, then cover with a damp cloth and let the dough rest in a warm place for 1-1½ hours.

After resting, knead the dough again for 5 minutes on a lightly floured surface. Roll it out into a sausage shaped form. Cut into 24 pieces. Flatten each piece with your hand, and then roll it out to a disc about 10 cm in diameter.

I won't give you a recipe for filling here, but these buns can have both sweet and savory fillings. Take about a tablespoon of your chosen filling and place in the middle of the dough. Gather the edges together to meet at the top (see above pictures for how it should sort of look). Twist to enclose. Let the buns stand for at least 20 minutes before cooking.

Place the buns on top of a cheesecloth or on individually cut out pieces of parchment paper on the rack of a steamer (we use a Chinese style bamboo steamer, it worked great). Cover and steam vigorously for 15-20 minutes. Serve hot.

Char Siu

Oh Hong Kong food, how can I count the ways I love and miss thee? Crispy pork buns, sweet and sour pork, chicken in lotus leaves, spicy noodle soups, wontons, Shanghai soup dumplings.....why oh why aren't you available in Sweden?!

Well, one way to solve the problem is to make it yourself. We decided to start off lightly, and attempt to make char siu, Cantonese BBQ pork. After consulting The Chinese Kitchen by Deh-Ta Hsiung we set off on a mission to find crushed yellow bean sauce and red fermented bean curd - quite a daunting task in our culinary challenged town. We had no luck with the bean sauce, but after a visit to (the only?) Chinese store in Uppsala, there's now a rather big jar of bean curd standing in our fridge. The same store also had frozen chicken feet and canned durian, so we now know where to turn should we ever feel inclined to give those a try again.

Making the char siu was straightforward, but a bit time consuming. The marinade smelled right (it smelled kind of like Hong Kong, minus the traffic fumes and weird dried sea animals) and after tasting we had to say that we got it pretty damn close. Next time we'll use some other cut of pork, the pork loin got a bit too dry. Any ideas? We had to skip the crushed yellow bean sauce, but if we do find a jar of it somewhere, we'll make sure to get back to you to report if that got the taste even closer to right.

We used our very fancy, very expensive made-of-wood-that-you-shouldn't-buy-because-it's-bad-for-the-environment chopsticks for the first time, to eat our homemade char siu- we think it was a fitting way to inaugurate them. Now there's leftover Char Siu in the fridge and we have plans for that, oh yes we do...!



Char Siu
From The Chinese Kitchen by Deh-Ta Hsiung

2 kg pork loin
3 tbsp honey, dissolved in a little hot water

For the marinade:
2 tbsp sugar
(2 tbsp crushed yellow bean sauce - we skipped this since we didn't have any, add it if you do)
2 tbsp Hoi Sin sauce
2 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsp red fermented bean curd
4 tbsp rum, brandy or Chinese liquor (we used dark rum)
2 tsp sesame oil

Cut the pork into about 1½ cm thick slices. Mix all the ingredients for the marinade. Place the meat in a shallow dish or in double plastic bags (we prefer plastic bags) and add the marinade. Blend well so that all the meat is covered in marinade (this is where it's easier to use plastic bags, simply seal them (well!) and then you can "massage" the marinade into the meat from the outside). Let marinade for at least two hours, turning occasionally.

Set the oven to 220°C (425°F). Arrange the meat on a wire rack - save the marinade for later. Place the rack over a baking pan with about 2 dl boiling water in it. The water will give some steam in the oven and the pan catches the marinade that drips of the meat. Place the whole deal in the oven and bake for 12-15 minutes.

Reduce the heat to 175°C (350°F). Baste the pork with some of the reserved marinade, turn them over and baste again. Cook for another 8-10 minutes.

Brush the pork with the dissolved honey on both sides and let it brown slighly under a medium broiler for 3-5 minutes, turning once or twice. Our oven don't have a medium broiler, so we simply turned on the grill function of the oven (strong heat from above) and positioned the meat closer to the oven roof.

Allow the meat to cool before serving. Make a sauce by boiling the left over marinade with what has collected in the baking pan. Strain before serving. We ate this with rice, some sauce and a little thinly sliced leek (that's how the university's lunch restaurant served it). Char Siu is really never eaten alone as a main course (few Chinese dishes are) but rather as an appetizer, as a part of a larger meal or as an ingredient in other dishes. More on that last part later...!