CHICKEN CURRY PUFFS

 

Well this is the season always make me think of hot spicy curry. Is winter now in down side of the earth. It still occurred to me having winter in the mid year make us all here so special . While other side of the earth is having beautiful spring, summer cozy warm environment, ours is cold , dry and slow is just so different .

 

The curry thought bring up this idea of making some special Malaysia snack and it has been awhile I have an authentic curry puff in Australia. Instead of waiting to find a right stall why not make some for myself and friends =) Yup we have another steamboat night to celebrate Rice Dumpling festival and everyone take home a curry puff as snack/breakfast for the next day .

 

I also submitting this post to Little Thumbs Up event hosted by Miss B of Everybody Eats Well in Flanders at this link, organized by Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids and Doreen of my little favourite D.I.Y. 

 

So here is the recipe I used for making this delicious Chicken Curry Puffs -> Nasilemaklover

 

Curry chicken fillings

 

Ingredients:

750g  chicken mince

3oog  potatoes ( 3 large potatoes) - cut into small cubes

4Tbsp of Baba curry powder

8 pc of curry leaves

3Tbsp of Baba chili powder ( it can reduce if you prefer less spicy)

2 small onion- cut in small wedges size

3 tbsp cooking oil

 

Seasoning :

1tbsp soya sauce

1/2 tbsp salt

 

Method :

1. In a wok put in oil , when the oil turn hot put in the onion and curry leave sauté it till fragrant

2. Put the potatoes in a microwave container sprinkle some salt , pour enough water to cover it and boil in microwave for about 15min. This step help to prevent potatoes undercook during the stir fried process.

3.Once the onion and curry leave has been sauted till fragrant add in the chicken mince and stir fried till well. Put in the chili powder , constantly mixed well with the chicken

4. Pour in the cooked potatoes to the curry chicken mixture continue to combine the potatoes with into the curry chicken .

5. Put in the chili powder, soya sauce and salt. Taste to seasoning to your liking.

6. Once the chicken mince is cooked , off the fire and leave it aside to cool.

If the curry is too dry you can add some water in the wok when putting the potatoes .

 

Make 3 hard boil eggs , slice each egg into 8 pieces

 

 

Pastry

( I make about 24 pc by double the ingredients)

Ingredients :

 

Water Dough

400gall purpose flour ( I used plain flour)

180 -200gwater

6tbsp Cooking Oil

1tsp salt

50g caster sugar ( I used brown sugar)

 

Oil Dough

180g all purpose flour

90g shortening.

 

Method :

 

Water Dough ( I used stand mixer , it take about 10-15min to have all this mix well)

1. Mix all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl

2. Slowly pour in water and lightly knead till a soft dough

3. Cover and set aside to rest for 20 min

 

Oil Dough

1. Put flour in a mixing bowl

2. Rub in shortening and slowly combine to a soft dough. ( you might want to slice the shortening to fine piece for easy mixing)

3. Cover and set aside to rest for 15mins

 



 

Making Spiral curry puff skin

 

1.Flatten the water dough and wrap the oil dough inside. Pinch and seal the edge nicely.

2. Dust some flour on your work surface, gently roll the dough into a rectangle.

3. Fold the rectangle from one long end by 1/3 and fold the other long end over the top.

4.Rotate the dough 90 degree, gently roll the dough into rectangle again and repeat the folding process twice more

5.Once the dough has been rolled and folded 3 times, slowly roll up tightly into a swissroll and rest for 20min.

6. Use a knife, divide the dough according to the size you are making . For my curry puff mould it make about 24 pc for this measurement.

A picture speak thousand word do go to the link and see how this process is done.
I learnt something from this rolling process, the dough has to be rough quite tightly into a swissroll shape, if is not firmly roll up , when you roll it out to a small disc the spiral style in the middle might break off easily .

 

To fill and shape puff

 

1.Take a small dough (spiral side face up) , used a small rolling pin to roll to a circle disc.

2. Place the dough into the curry puff mould ( yes I cheat I tried to do it with my hand it just does not work)

3.Put 1 tbsp of curry chicken filling in and place a slice of hard boil egg.

4.Fold in the mould and here you have a beautiful curry puff. Make sure the edge is tightly seal. If not once it place in a hot oil, it will open up.

 

Once the curry puffs has been made , heat up the oil . The oil has to be really hot and place curry puff into it . Deep fried till golden color.

 

 

Need me to say more, it was so crispy and yummy. All my friends love it. The response is so good I make another batch of 80 pc and sold to those who love what I have make. Result is well responsed and is so encouraging for my 1st food business venture out .

 

I look forward to share more of the food I love and if GOD is please the door will be open wide :)

 

Appreciate all the support from my friends , it was such an encouraging experience.

 



 

 



RICE DUMPLINGS

 
I am just extremely busy this month ( well who is not ) . Sigh .. Being an Accountant by professional , this month is a crazy month given is Australia End of Year reporting. Honestly, things should not get that bad but is the start of winter too. Winter is NOT my kind of weather . Australia winter is too dry , too icing cold even when we have sun around us. You do not feel any warmness. The winter start of with rain , wet and strong wind. Just make thing a little bit difficult for me. I should not be complaining anymore , June is going to over and I just need to get more use to this .

Rice Dumpling festival fall on 12/06/2013 this year. ( Is a Chinese Festival so it goes according to Lunar calendar) . I promise myself I will do my best to celebrate ALL Chinese festival even I am in Australia. So here is it, my happy rice dumpling experience this year.

I had done the normal Cantoneses style rice dumplings last year but I would love to do more this year. I spend one short afternoon making some sweet red bean rice dumpling and another weekend doing the all the savoury rice dumplings. Always wanted to try out Nyonya Rice Dumpling , so this year I take this opportunity to make some for myself ( Is an acquired taste, I realised not many people like it )

There are so many recipes on the internet, I realised that is so many style even with the same style the result for each one of us will be different. The reason is you are going to do a style that is from your family . I would say Rice Dumpling is indeed a family dish , the way you did it probably is the way your mom did it. Your mom surely got her recipe from her mom and needless to say , grandma got it from her mom too ^^. Hence this make the rice dumpling so special for each one of us.

My mom did not do Nyonya Rice Dumpling ( as we are not Peranakan ( Nyonya)) so I got the recipe from the internet ->Annielicious . However I make some changes. I cannot find any blue flower in Australia, basically not sure how it looks like and where can I get it I do not bother myself too much to find it. I add pandan essence into my rice and make it the "green" version instead of the blue version. The result still great, it make the smell of pandan stronger in the rice dumpling and I omit the part that put a pandan leaves in the rice dumpling while wrapping it.

For the Sweet Red Bean Rice Dumpling the recipe is as below :

Ingredients :
400g Glutinous rice ( soak overnight)
1Tbsp of Lye Water ( Alkaine water)
120g of Azuki Bean ( Ok I play cheat, I have no time to prepare the red bean hence used the can bean)
20 pieces of small bamboo leaves

Method :

1. Soaked glutinous rice overnight , till water come out clear.
2. Mixed the lye water into the glutinous rice , till the rice change to yellowish color. Be ensure all the rice is mixing well as too much of lye water will have a taste of bitterness in the rice. So do not use too much of it.
3. Wrap the rice dumpling as per the link ->Table for 2 or more. She show a very good video in how to wrap rice dumpling.
4. The portion to for this rice dumpling, place 1/2 tbsp of rice into the leaves and 1 tsp of red bean then top with 1/2 tbsp of rice.It really depend no how big/small your leave is.
5. Tie the rice dumpling well and boil it in hot water for at least 2-2.5 hours. I make a mistakes , I thought such small rice dumpling need not to boil for that long , so it turns out the inside part of my sweet rice dumpling is not thoroughly cook .

I realised once the rice dumpling is undercook is hard to get it cooked through even if you put it back to the pot to re boil . So make sure it is done well the 1st round.

As for my Bak Zhang - meat rice dumpling , the recipe is from my mom . I simply love it the way she did cause is family food. So I will share the recipe is some other time as family recipe is always goes with your gut feelings , we do not have exact measurement. I got to work it out .

All my friends has a rice dumpling from me. This is how I share my love and blessings from GOD to others. They love it and enjoy it much . I have make total of  15 Sweet Red Bean Rice Dumpling , 15
Nyonya Rice Dumpling and 59 Cantonese Style Rice Dumpling.

One of the friends love it so much , beside what was given to them , they bought the extra dumpling from me. Some suggest that I do more and they want to place order from me. They simply love it ! I guess the different from what is selling outside compare to what I did, is the way a family will make it for their close one.

Chinese Pan Fried Chive Pork Bun ( 韭菜猪肉煎包）.

Another Chinese bun ( Bao) moments. It has been awhile I was thinking to make this Chinese Pan Fried Bun ( 菲菜猪肉煎包）. Is another type of savory bun . It is wrap with meat , vegetable or both. This time round I choose to use chives and pork to be the fillings.

Is excited to know other food bloggers through food blogging , I am submitting this blog for Aspiring Bakers #31 - Bao Ho-Chiak 包好 by Miss B Everyone Eats Well in Flanders.. Thanks for her sharing and showing me some of the substitute for different flours. I have bought some Chinese bun flour ( 中筋面粉）to make some bun, so this is the 1st attempt for my Chinese bun ( bao ) journey.

I have used another bun recipe from the same cookbook I used for my Baked Char Siew Bun. Dim Sim Inspiration ( 一点心意）by Choong Su Yin for my bun recipe , as for the filling is my own recipe.

 Serving 12 bao

Ingredients :

Chives & Pork Fillings

350g mince pork
150g Chinese chives (cut into small dice)


 Seasonings
11/2 Tbsp of soya sauce
1 tsp of salt
2 tsp of sesame oil
3/4 of corn flour
Adequate pepper
Adequate chicken powder ( I replace the MSG in the original recipe , this is an option)

Method :
1.Combine mince pork and chives with all the seasonings and mixed well. Marinate at least 30min ( I did overnight)

Bao Dough

300g Chinese Bao Flour ( You can used plain flour)
3 tsp of baking powder ( original recipe is 2tsp of double action baking powder )
55g Sugar
6g of yeast
70g fresh milk
70g cold water
20g shortening

Method :

1. Stir flour with baking powder in a mixing bowl. Make a well in the middle add in sugar , yeast, milk and cold water.
2. User electric standing mixer , knead to form dough. After 10min add in shortening and continue to knead to smooth and elastic dough
3. Roll the dough to form a long strip, divide the dough into 40g each . Flatten the dough , wrap in the fllings and mould it into bao shape and flatten it as per the pan fried bun .
4. Set aside to proof till the size doubles ( about 1.5 hours)
5. Pan fried the bun on low fire. When is lightly brown at one side, turn to the other side continue to pan fried. Add 1tbsp of water when the bun is cooked to steam the bun for moist.

 Be careful as the fire should be low if not the bun will be burn outside and yet uncooked inside. Keep your eyes close when you pan frying the bun.

I did pan fried the bao in low fire , it take sometime to cook through. So to make it easier for myself. I steam the bun for 10min in a hot steamer then pan fried it to crisp the bun.So the fillings is easy to cook through.

I have this as my weekend breakkie. It was so yum. This dough method does not require double proof. As the bun is not very thick ,to me is the dough is soft and yum . It can be heat up in an oven the next day , it still taste crisp and tasty.

If you never make any bun  like me before, maybe you can try this out.The method seem easy and not too difficult to follow.

Happy making and enjoy the fruit of your hand :)