Steamed Buns

Here is the recipe for the Steamed Buns I made for my Birthday Feast.  Normally these are made with pork as Char Siu Bau at Yum Cha (Dim Sum).  As soon as I saw the recipe in my The Food of the World - A Journey for Food Lovers book, I knew I had to make them!  We just love going to Yum Cha and this is possibly my favourite dish, though there are so many yummy foods it is hard to choose a favourite.  I was very pleased that these worked so well and tasted just like the real thing.  I think they may become a regular item on our menu!  The dough does take some time to prepare, but once it is ready they are very easy to make and well worth it.

Basic Chinese Yeast Dough
3 tbsp Sugar
1 Cup warm water
1 1/2 tsp dried yeast
400g plain flour
2 tbsp oil
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

Place the water, sugar and oil in an electric mixer bowl.  Add flour, make a small well on top and add yeast.  Mix with dough hook attachment until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 8-10 minutes.  If you don't have an electric mixer you can mix with a wooden spoon, then knead dough on a lightly floured surface.  Lightly grease a bowl with some oil, place the dough in the bowl and turn it so that all sides are coated.  Cover with a cloth and set aside to rise in a draught free place for 3 hours.

Uncover the dough, punch it down and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface.  If you are not ready to use the dough, you can wrap it in plastic wrap and place in fridge until ready.  When you are ready to use the it, flatten the dough and make a well in the center.  Place the baking powder in the well and gather up the edges to enclose the baking powder.  Pinch the edges to seal.  Lightly knead the dough for several minutes to evenly incorporate the baking powder.  It is not ready to use.

Red Bean Filling
1 tsp oil
1 can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed.
1 onion, finely chopped
1 small zucchini, finely chopped
3 button mushrooms, chopped
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tsp soy sauce
3 tsp sugar

Heat the oil in a wok or large frypan.  Add the beans and stir fry for about 3 minutes until the beans are soft and breaking up a little.  Add the onion, mushrooms and zucchini and cook for a further 2 minutes.  Add the sesame oil, soy sauce and sugar, cook for a further minute, then leave to cool.

Steamed Buns
Divide the dough into 24 portions.  Press a portion into a circle and place 1-2 tsps of the red bean filling into the middle of the dough.  Fold the sides up to enclose the filling, pinching the top to seal them completely.  Repeat with remaining portions.  Place the buns well apart into a steamer.  Normally this would be done in a bamboo steamer over a wok but as we didn't have any, I just used a vegetable steamer insert over a saucepan of boiling water.  Steam the buns over simmering water for 15 minutes or until the buns are well risen and a skewer inserted into the center comes out hot.

A Birthday Feast

For my Birthday this year, I decided to cook my own special Birthday feast!  As Teena and I both love going to Yum Cha, I wanted to try cooking some myself at home.  I'd found a recipe for Sweet Pork Buns in a book...  It looked easy enough and I wanted to try it as soon as I saw it, so this was a good opportunity to try it out.  So in the end I came up with the following menu:

Vegetarian Spring Rolls, Steamed Sweet Buns, Fried Rice and Hot and Honeyed Chicken Wings

The Vegetarian Spring Rolls were very tasty.  Teena doesn't usually like spring rolls, but she did like these one.  I found the recipe at Taste.com.au.  They were fairly easy to make, but I ended up using all the wrappers and still having a bowl full of vegetables and noodles left over.  We just fried that up for dinner though so it wasn't wasted.  We froze the leftover spring rolls and they cook up just fine after defrosting them.

The original recipe for these Sweet buns were with a pork filling. As Teena is 16 weeks pregnant, we are being careful with the food she is eating.  So I made the filling with red beans instead of pork.  I wasn't sure how these would turn out but I was hopeful as i really love these when we go to Yum Cha!  I'm happy to say they were delicious!  A bit involved as it takes a while to prepare the dough, but once that's done it was fairly easy.  They may not look so great in the picture, I should have taken one opened up...  But they do taste great, the bun is so sweet and soft, and the filling turned out great as well.  You can see the recipe for these here.

I also love fried rice.  This one was a little different then usual with some ginger and shredded Chinese cabbage in it.  It was nice but I prefer the type you get in a restaurant, something I've never really been able to recreate...

These chicken wings are so tasty!  It's really hard to stop eating them...  I've made them before though, so you can see the recipe here.

So needless to say, I had a good birthday :)

Baked Cheesecake with Passionfruit Topping

Teena loves cheesecake, so for her Birthday this year, I made her this Baked Cheesecake with Passionfruit Topping.  We've decided to only make one cheesecake per year because after a week of eating a whole cheesecake between the two of us... it felt like we put on a few kgs.  Luckily, this year Teena's parents visited her for her Birthday and helped us eat it, so it wasn't so bad.  I had meant to get a few more pictures of the cake after it had been sliced, but it just didn't last long enough :)  This recipe is based on a recipe found here.

Ingredients
Crust
2 cups ground Arnotts Choc Ripple Biscuits
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

Filling
900g cream cheese, at room temperature
1 cup caster sugar
Juice from 1/2 lemon, strained
Finely grated zest of 1/2 lemon
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs, separated
1/2 cup heavy cream

Passionfruit Topping
1 tbs cornflour
1/3 cup water
4-5 Passionfruit
1/4 cup caster sugar, extra


Preheat oven to 350 F/180 C. Lightly coat the bottom and sides of an 8-inch (20cm) springform pan with nonstick cooking spray.

To Make the Crust:
In a mixing bowl, combine the biscuit crumbs and the melted butter with a fork until evenly moistened. Spoon the biscuit mixture into the prepared pan and, using the bottom of a glass, press the crumbs down into the base and 1-inch up the sides. Chill crust in refrigerator until ready to fill.

To Make the Filling:
Using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese on low speed for 1 minute, until smooth and free of any lumps. Add the egg yolks, one at a time, and continue to beat slowly until combined, then beat in cream. Gradually add sugar and beat until creamy, for 1 to 2 minutes. Add the strained lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla. Periodically scrape down the sides of the bowl and the beaters. Beat until well combined and the mixture is light and fluffy (the batter should be well combined but not overmixed).

Using clean electric beaters or a balloon whisk, whisk the egg whites in a medium bowl until soft peaks form. Using a large metal spoon, fold beaten egg whites into cream cheese mixture until just combined.

Pour the mixture into the chilled crust. Bake in preheated oven for 40 minutes, or until just set in the center. Loosen the cheesecake from the sides of the pan by running a thin metal spatula around the inside rim. Let cool in the pan for 30 minutes. Chill in the refrigerator, loosely covered, for at least 4 hours to overnight to set.

To Make the Passionfruit Topping:
Combine the cornflour and water in a small bowl. Transfer to a saucepan. Add the passionfruit and extra sugar. Place over medium heat and cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes or until the mixture boils and thickens. Set aside to cool slightly. Pour over cheesecake. Place in fridge until set.

Moussaka

I'd never even heard of Moussaka until after I met Teena.  She told me her dad had made it all the time and that it was delicious.  So she bought me some eggplant, found me a recipe and asked me to make her some.  The recipe I use is from Taste.com.au.  I've since made Moussaka several times and Teena was right, it is delicious!  I have also discovered recently that there are several versions of Moussaka. This one that I make is the Greek version with layered egg plant and white sauce, although I use beef mince instead of lamb mince.  There is also a Turkish version which is not layered, but sautéed instead.  And other versions which use zucchini or potatoes instead of eggplant.

Ingredients

• 2 large eggplants
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 500g beef mince
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 tsp allspice
• 400g can tomatoes
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley
• 50g butter
• 2 tbs plain flour
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• pinch of nutmeg
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup grated cheese

Preheat oven to 180°C.  Thinly slice eggplants, then cook in olive oil until golden brown.

Brown mince and onion. Add allspice, tomatoes and water. Simmer for 20-30 minutes. Stir in chopped parsley.  Layer eggplant on the bottom of an ovenproof dish.  Top with a layer of mince.  Repeat until you have used up all your ingredients, finishing with a layer of eggplant. 

Melt butter in a saucepan. Add flour, stir for 1 minute. Whisk in milk and stir over medium heat until it boils. Add nutmeg and egg, stir well.  Pour mixture over the top of your layered eggplant dish and top with cheese.  Bake for 20-30 minutes.

 The only thing I would do differently next time is perhaps bake the sliced eggplant as it really absorbs a lot of olive oil when you try to fry it.  I'll have to it with lamb mince one day as well.

See more great recipes at Foodie Friday.

Passionfruit Kisses

We had a handful of passionfruit to use up, and came across this recipe for Passionfruit Melting Moments, although we prefer to call them Passionfruit Kisses.  They looked so good we just had to try them!

Ingredients

250g unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup pure icing sugar
2 cups plain flour
1/3 cup cornflour

Passionfruit filling
60g butter
1 large passionfruit
1 cup pure icing sugar

Preheat oven to 160°C.  Line two trays with baking paper.
Cream butter, vanilla and icing sugar with an electric mixer (or a hand mixer like the one above if you're feeling energetic!).  Once mixture is light and fluffy, add flours and continue to mix until it forms a soft dough.

Roll  small teaspoons of the mixture into balls and place on trays.  Use a fork to flatten each biscuit.  Bake for 15 minutes or until firm.  They don't change colour much so don't go off that.  Cool them completely before adding icing.

To make the passionfruit filling, beat butter until light and fluffy. Stir in passionfruit pulp and icing sugar.  Spoon 1 tsp of the filling onto the flat side of a biscuit and top with another biscuit.  Repeat with remaining biscuits.  Dust with icing sugar.

For us the icing texture was not quite right.  It wasn't fluffy enough, perhaps I didn't beat it enough or something.  It still worked ok and tasted great, but it should have been thicker and creamier.  We will make these again for sure, but I'll try something different with the icing.  The biscuits could have been a bit thinner as well, as when you put them together they can be quite thick.

See more great recipes at Foodie Friday.

Missing Comments

Apparently Blogger is having issues at the moment with comments.  I've noticed some comments have gone missing on my blog and some other blogs today.  Hopefully they can fix it soon.

Margherita Pizza

It's the middle of winter here in Australia. The nights and morning can get fairly cold, but when the sun comes out, the days can be quite warm.  On the weekend, Teena and I spent a lot of time sitting out in the courtyard in the sun to warm up a bit.  Teena did some crocheting, as I looked through some cookbooks for ideas.  I came across a page about pizza and it's history.  The Margherita pizza's history in particular caught my eye.

"The Margherita, topped with modest amounts of tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and fresh basil is widely attributed to baker Raffaele Esposito. Esposito worked at the pizzeria "Pietro... e basta così" (literally "Peter... and that's enough") which was established in 1880 and is still operating under the name "Pizzeria Brandi." In 1889, he baked three different pizzas for the visit of King Umberto I and Queen Margherita of Savoy. The Queen's favorite was a pizza evoking the colors of the Italian flag — green (basil leaves), white (mozzarella), and red (tomatoes). This combination was named Pizza Margherita in her honor." - Wikipedia.

As Teena was feeling a bit queasy, she requested some simple food (i.e. no fancy ingredients).  So I decided to make her a Margherita pizza.  We didn't have mozzarella, so I just used tasty cheese.  Normally when I make a pizza I load it with onion, capsicum, mushrooms, and other yummy ingredients.  So making a pizza with only three toppings was unusual for me.  The base was covered with tomato paste, then topped with cheese and basil leaves.  So simple.

I have to admit though, it was very good.  You can really taste the basil, which was picked fresh from our garden, and it's always nice to be able to use fresh ingredients you've grown yourself.  I ended up making four pizzas, eating two and freezing the other two, ready to be cooked next time we feel like pizza. 

What's your favourite pizza topping?