Homemade mantou (Chinese steamed bun)

During Chinese New Year meal, I made mantou to serve with the roast duck. The mantou is easy to make and taste much fresher, soft and fluffy. After my 5km run this morning, I decided to make another batch of steamed bun to serve with braised pork belly. So I deserve the extra calories. :-)

Mantou

Ingredients (20 buns)

• 280 gm Hong Kong flour
• 100 gm wheat starch (Tung Mein Fen)
• 80 gm icing sugar
• 30 ml vegetable oil
• 8 gm fast action yeast/dry yeast
• 180 ml warm water

1. Sift flour, wheat starch, icing sugar into a mixing bowl. Then form a well in the middle and add in yeast, water and oil. Use a spatula to mix well.




2. Don't worry as the mixture is a little bit sticky. Dust the worktop with some Hong Kong flour and give a good 10 minutes of kneading to the dough.




3. Then set aside in a warm area to rise, cover with damp tea towel.




4. After the dough had triple in size, dust the worktop again and give a good 5 minutes of kneading.




5. Then roll into a long dough and cut into 20pieces. Take a piece and roll into ball, then roll out into a circle of 5mm thickness. Use an oil chopstick to glaze the top half of the circle and fold into half.
   
6. Let it rise for a further 30minutes before steaming.




7. Steam for 12-15minutes on high heat.

Enjoy with your favorite meat.....braised or roast.

Roti Jala (Net bread)

I have wanted to make roti jala for a long time but never come round to it. So the mould has been sitting in my kitchen cabinet for awhile. Since I've prepared curry chicken the night before, so it's high time to put my roti jala mould to good use.

Roti Jala
Ingredients (make about 12 pieces)

• 125g flour
• 1 large eggs
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 cup of coconut milk
• 1 tbsp of vegetable oil
• 1 tsp tumeric powder
  
• 1 pinch of salt

1. Mix all the above ingredients except oil to form a runny batter. Then add in the oil, mix well and set aside.
   
2. Prepare a non stick pan. Heat on low heat, lightly grease with some vegetable oil. Once it's hot, scoop a laddleful of batter onto the mould and run it over the pan. You can see the video here how it's being made.
3. Once it's cook, transfer from the pan to a plate. You can wrap it in traingle form or roll it.
4. Served with curry.

I like my roti jala, tasty with authentic Malaysian curry.

Un croissant sil vous plait

This brings back memory while I was in Grenoble, France some time ago. In any French town, one could only be drawn to boulangerie that dotted every corner of the street. I picked up a few useful sentences while in France in order to get along with everyday life, i.e bon jour, merci beaucoup, la dison sil vous plait, ca va? , tres bien and of course my favorite phrase while I visit any boulangerie: un croissant sil vous plait.
The freshly baked aroma of croissant is drawing me to the boulangerie every morning. Oooh, ooh so heavenly. I could easily get ready made croissants from Tesco but I'm so lazy to go out this morning as weather is damp and windy. Yes I know making croissant is quite tedious but aye, who can resist the freshly home baked croissant?

I followed this recipes from bbc good food:

Croissant
Ingredients (make 24 croissants)

• 1kg/2.2lb strong white flour
• 450g/1lb unsalted butter
• pinch of salt
• 570ml/1 pint water and milk mixed
• 2 sachets easy bake yeast (14 grammes)
  
• 1 egg for egg wash

1.Sift flour into a bowl, cut butter into small pieces, add a pinch of salt, yeast and with a pallet knife cut in water and milk. This makes a horrible sticky mess but turn onto a lightly floured table and carefully knead to make a cohesive dough.

2. Shape mixture into a rectangle and roll out to approximately 30cmx20cm/12inx8in. Fold over the top third, fold up the bottom third, seal each side with the side of your hand, then put into a plastic bag and chill for 30 minutes. Turn 90 degrees and roll again to another rectangle. Fold up bottom third and seal with the side of your hand. Chill as before for 30 minutes. Repeat two more times, chilling 30 minutes between each rolling. Return to plastic bag and refrigerate for an hour.

3. Remove from fridge and roll carefully into a big rectangle 50cm/30cm/24inx12in cut in half lengthways, divide each half into 12 triangles. Then from the widest edge of the triangle, roll up tightly and place in a crescent shape on a tray. Beat egg for egg wash and with care, egg wash croissant. Make sure you do not go over a cut edge with egg wash. This will stop them from rising properly if desired.

4. When frozen take off the tray and put into a plastic bag.

5. For use, remove from freezer the number required for breakfast, put onto baking tray and leave overnight. Put into a hot oven at 200C and bake for about 15 minutes until browned and risen.

You can also watch this video on step by step how it's make.
And one of my favorite baking websites - Joe Pastry who gives a lot of good tips on how to bake.

Serve with strawbery jam or marmalade. It's so crispy and flaky on the outside and soft on the inside. Hmnnnn............heavenly.

Cinnamon Sunday

It's been blastering with rain again non stop since midnite.....cold, cold and miserably cold....
Need some ''pick me up'' breakfast food to aid me beat the Sunday blues....
How does that sounds like for a lazy Sunday morning.....having a freshly baked cinnamon roll with freshly brewed decaf coffee in my cozy conservatory[listening to the hypnotic sound of raindrops beating against the roof of my cozy corner]?

Since the bread dough is quite similar to the one I made earlier for sweet dough, I tried googling and found a nice recipes and work out just fine for me. Follow this link and there's video showing you step by step easy to follow instructions and recipes as well. I halved the ingredients used as I don't have to make for 8 people, I make enough for 4.
http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-make-cinnamon-rolls

The spreading of cinnamon mixing onto dough it not easy to get an even spread, however I find that for the filling it's easier to spread the butter onto the rolled up dough first, then followed by sprinkling cinnamon+brown sugar on it. Roll it up then.

The cinnamon turn out really well....... it perks me up without fail :-). Of course my cinnamon roll came without the frosting because I don't like my cinnamon too sweet, I want more cinnamon tasty rather than just overly sweet.

Ingredient for the filling-butter, ground cinnamon powder, brown sugar

Line up little one

Now I called this Blissful Sunday....is not it?



By the way am going mussel picking in The Wash in this dreadful horrible weather. Stay tuned to see how it turn out to be.

Feeling nostalgic about bun

Thirty years ago in my hometown of Perak, we used to stay next door to a local bakery. Back then we as kid always saw those bakers kneading relentlessly on huge heavy dough every morning. One thing that always lingered deeply in my memory was the aroma of freshly baked bread. What a pleasant way to wake up every single morning. Of course my favorite loaf during those days was long loaf spread with sugary butter cream(additional cream pleaaaaaase) ...it cost 5cents for a cream loaf back then. Those were the bygone days.......
Back to present, all the nostalgic events of yesteryear has a deep implication especially on the food department(I mean FOOD department with capitals). So I decided to knead a sweet bread dough. Making bread is no easy task if one has no breadmaker. I hand knead it relentlessly like the traditional baker. Food made with effort always taste better in my humble opinion :-) [even if it's only 99.999% perfect]. And the reward sweet & fresh aroma of freshly baked bread lingering.......nostalgic....priceless.
So what to make of the filling? Easy, quick and yet tasty. I decided to have a go at making mini frankfurter roll (or well known sausage roll). This recipes good for making twelve, 3 inches long mini roll.

The sweet bread dough
Ingredients

• 150gm of white bread flour
• 150gm of plain flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 125ml fresh milk
• 50gm butter
• 40-60gm sugar (I used 40gm)
  
• 5gm fast action dried yeast
• 1 egg

Filling
Ingredients

• 4 six inches long frankfurter (cut into 3 sections, that makes 12)
• 1 egg for glazing the bread
• some sesame seed for decorating
  

1. Put the dried ingredient (flour, salt, sugar, yeast) into a mixing bowl.
2. Add in butter, egg and milk. Knead them. At this time you feel that it is sticky to your finger, no worry.
3. Prepare a flat surface like a chopping board, dust the surface with plain flour. Dust your finger with some flour as well so that it will be easier to knead the sticky dough.
   
4. Pour the mixture onto the work surface and continue to knead. Knead for 20-25mins when it feels elastic and smooth. Put it back to the mixing bowl cover with a piece of damp towel/cloth. (I leave it in the oven until the next morning, when it should have risen 3 times its original size)
5. Dust the work surface again and knead for 5mins once it has risen 3 times its original size.
   
6. Cut to portion of 50gm each and roll each into a strip of 2 inches wide x 4 inches long x 0.25inches thick.
   
7. Place a sausage at the end and roll it to the other end. Continue to do for the rest. Brush the roll with egg and drop some sesame seed onto the surface.
8. Prepare a baking tray and lay it with aluminium foil. Turn on oven to 190C and baked for 15mins.