Steam Pao & BahKua

Today is Chinese New Year's Eve, so tonight I am having Tuan Yuan Fan ( 团圆饭 @ Reunion Dinner ). As we are all foreign students away from our home land, almost all of us have a reunion dinner with our group members, or close friends.

Our group is of course not excluded from this "tradition". So as usual, almost each of us prepared a dish for the night. And this time I chose to make Pao ( 包 ) to match with WeiMin & SyihYing's Kou Rou( 扣肉 ). Thus we have Kou Rou Bao ( 扣肉包 ). For those who don't know what I am talking about, or need a recipe of homemade Kou Rou, kindly click here.

Before & After : Yeast

Prepare papers while waiting for the first rising of the dough.

Before & After : Dough first rising

Before & After : Pao second rising

After steaming

Oh my! Oh my! How can we not have BahKua ( 肉干 ) in CNY!!! Erm, well, I don't have it for 5 years in a row at least. But this year, I won't want to miss it.

Marinated minced pork

So after all I will have time while waiting for the dough to rise. I prepared my ingredients for my homemade BahKua based on LilyWai's recipe. Well, I did modify the recipe, as usual. As I don't have all the ingredients. I substituted the rose wine with my own wine (the wine bought from airport --- DOM), the white pepper to black. I omitted the fish sauce, kamcho powder, red colouring and of course the MSG. The smell was similar, however the taste lacks the saltiness And then only did I noticed that the recipe doesn't consist any bit of salt except soy sauce.

Before & After

The minced pork is to be spreaded to as thin a sheet as possible. And it is spreaded widely. However, after baking, it shrunk so much, about 50%. See the difference from the pictures above? So now I think I knew why BahKua is sold so expensively in Malaysia. Hehe

So here I have my very own BahKua, I am still very satisfied with the taste :)

Hmm, wanna know how the reunion dinner was??? Sure, next post will be about it :)

Steam Pao

On 11th January 2010, Monday (Yes, it is Monday. Still quarantined due to the spread of H1N1 in Crimea), 4pm-10.30pm, a project of Chinese Steam Vegetable Pao is accomplished --- SUCCESSFULLY! My very first attempt again *YES!!!*

Yummy yummy, finally found the best mixture of pau-making recipe. It is a success. I am pretty sure it's going to be one of my favourite, only except that it is of a tidious work. I used all most all my energy. And my muscles of the upper extremities ache so much the next day. But nevertheless it is worth it.

The Result

The filling I used was cabbage with carrot, as it is shown in the picture below. After preparing the filling, I began to do the dough that consumes the most time and energy.

Dough-making is a long process. Took hours although most of it is the time for the dough to rest. Meaning you can do whatever you want while waiting. From preparing the dough till the end of game, took about 6 hours. But the end results is a very satisfying one.

Second Rising of the dough with the filling inside.

The heater is of full-use especially in this cold winter season --- multiple function with multiple purpose, making full use out of it. Make sure this blog is not read by any CSMU administators, hehehehe.

Steaming of the bun with steamer

The end result of the fully-risen pao. Hmm, the black dot is not dirt, it's pepper --- black pepper :DAll ingredients are available in Ukraine, and of course Malaysia. The paper used under the Pao is just ordinary A4 papers.