Green Tea Choux Pastry 抹茶泡芙

These two weeks I have been baking a few batches of choux pastry, the result is satisfying.  It has been a while I didn't make any dessert and trying new recipe, but I realise that returning to bake and do what I always passion about and love make me happy, hiding my own passion doesn't work well for me. I can't forget how the ladies I met in Qatar always inspire each other to bake and cook lovely food. I love the time we experimented food in our own kitchen then shared the result to each other to discuss how we could do better next round. I also remember P was the one brought all of us together to bake or prepare food for the school charity events. The happy friendship there is always in my heart. A true baker will appreciate another baker, I remembered when I found other bakers how happy I was. Sadly I yet to find a company over here to do the same.

Last weekend, a batch of 10 pieces of choux pastry was served to my guests, I love how the pastry cream and the choux pastry turned out. The choux pastry rises up to it maximum height, with a lovely crispy crust and hollow centre in the puffs. The pastry cream is just the right consistency, not runny and able to hold in the shape.

Then I baked another two more batches, again, this batch of mini matcha choux pastry which truly loved by my family, my hubby was able to enjoy this dessert... a less sweet version of choux pastry. I made about 27 mini choux pastry and it was all gone in a day time. I think this will be a great dessert for an event or party, do let me know if you would like me to bake for you. 

yield 27 mini pastry

Ingredients:
100g unsalted butter, soft
180ml water
125ml milk

125g pastry flour
5g caster sugar
3g table salt
5 1/2 eggs, lightly beaten (it depends on the absorption of the flour you use and also the size of your egg)

pastry cream:
200g whole milk
1/2 tsp vanilla powder
3 egg yolks
50g sugar
20g pastry flour, sifted
10g green tea powder

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Line baking tray with parchment paper.

2. In a small saucepan, combine water, milk, butter, sugar and salt. Bring to a boil over medium heat, then remove from heat.

3. Using a wooden spatula, quickly stir in the flour until combined, and mixture forms a ball. Return to heat and keep stirring until the mixture leaves the sides of the saucepan and a film forms on the bottom of the pan. Remove from heat.
4. Add in the egg one at a time, make sure each egg is fully incorporated before adding the next one.
5. Test the batter by taking a scoop of it using a wooden spoon. When you coat the batter and hang it down, the batter should form a smooth triangular shape.
6. Pour the dough into the piping bag fitted with plain piping tip. Pipe out 5cm circles onto a lined baking tray and gently smoothing out the pointed peaks with a moistened finger.
7. Bake the choux puffs for about 25 mins at 200C, you will see the choux pastry puffing up then reduce oven temperature to 180C and continue baking for another 20 mins. (It may varies as it depends on your oven capacity)

8. Prepare pastry cream: 

Add milk, vanilla powder to a saucepan and bring to a boil. 

In a clean bowl, beat egg yolks with sugar until the mixture is pale and fluffy. Add flour and green tea powder, mix well.

Add hot milk to the egg mixture and fold well. Return the egg and milk mixture to the saucepan and bring to boil over high heat, stir constantly. Continue to mix until the mixture is smooth and glossy, remove the saucepan from heat.

Transfer pastry cream to a pipping bag, after cool down, keep in fridge. Take out from fridge 30 mins before use. 

9. Assemble: Slice off a part of the top of choux puffs, pipe in the green tea pastry cream. Decorate as desire. 

Hokkien Bak Chang 2018 / Zongzi (Glutinous Rice Dumpling)

A few more days, winter school holidays is going to finish. Today I have arranged a play-date for my son, while the boys playing football game on Xbox and I'm at the relaxing mood to allow myself coming back to this blog space to update my backlog posts, it's lots of them I don't think I can do it all at one go. ^^ 

The Dragon Boat Festival was long over. I have been keeping the traditional of making this Chinese dish for the past few years. My family especially my son loves all traditional dishes I made even though his growing up years was not in South East Asia. This year I had the chance to bless some of the families with my homemade Hokkien Bak Chang which they can't buy it in Sydney. The one selling in Sydney usually is made by mainland China sellers, the ingredients used and the taste might not be the same as what we get in Malaysia or Singapore. 

A simple glutinous rice stuffed with different fillings and wrapped in bamboo leaves can have so much nostalgia. For me it is thinking of home and always my late grandma. This year I have added a special ingredient in my Hokkien Bak Chang, Lee Kum Kee Chinese Braising Sauce 李锦记秘制红烧汁 enhanced the Bak Chang a lot.

This year I only wrapped 40 pieces, for the remaining ingredients I placed them in a steaming plate and served. 

Ingredients:
(wrapped 40 pieces, the ingredients is able to yield 55 pieces)
2 kg pork belly, cut into small length bite size of about 1.5 cm strips)
100 pieces dried chestnuts (size uneven, soak and boil for 15 mins, remove membrane bits in slits)
20 pieces salted duck egg yolks (I cut one into half)
300g dried shitake mushrooms (soak in water to soften and trim the stem, sliced into thin slices)
3 bulbs of garlic (finely chopped)
300g dried shrimp (soak in water for 10 mins, roughly chopped)
2.5 kg glutinous rice (soak in water overnight, drain rice)
300ml cooking oil (for rice)

5-6 tbsp light soy sauce (for rice)

5-6 tbsp dark soy sauce (for rice)
200 ml Lee Kum Kee Chinese Braising Sauce 李锦记秘制红烧汁 (for rice)
Marinated pork belly and sliced mushrooms:

3 tbsp sugar (to taste)

5 tbsp dark soy sauce

5 tbsp light soy sauce

5 tbsp five spice powder (can add another tbsp if you want it to taste stronger)
a few dashes of black pepper (to taste)

1 tsp salt (to taste)

250ml water
3 tbsp cooking oil

1. Marinated pork belly and sliced mushrooms: Add sugar, dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, five spice powder, a few dashes of black pepper and salt. Mix well and marinate overnight in fridge.

Step:

1. To prepare filling: heat 3 tbsp oil in wok, stir fry marinated pork and mushrooms for 5 mins,  and add dried chestnuts. Add 250ml water and let it simmer for another 15 mins. or until the pork is cooked. Add salt and sugar if requires (the taste has to be strong in flavour as the taste will be diluted when boiling in water), Set aside.

2. To prepare glutinous rice: add 300ml oil into the wok used in (1). Add garlic and dried shrimp, stir-fry until fragrant. Add glutinous rice, mix well. Sufficient oil added will ensure the rice wouldn't stick on the bamboo leave later. Add Lee Kum Kee Chinese Braising Sauce, add 5-6 tbsp light soy sauce and 5-6 tbsp dark soy sauce. (Depends on how dark and salty you want the glutinous rice dumplings to be), stir fried for 5 mins, Set aside.

3. To assemble: Overlap two pieces of bamboo leaves, make a cone shape and press in a spoonful of rice, top with filling and cover with rice again, spoon some gravy from the filling onto the rice, wrap up the rice dumplings and tie with kitchen twine.

4. To Boil: Prepare a big pot of water, mine is around 15 litre soup pot, add 1 tbsp of salt, when water boiled, lower down the glutinous rice dumplings (20 pieces each time for my pot), boil for at least 1 hour. The water level has to be always above the rice dumplings. Take out the glutinous rice dumplings while it is done, dip dry the rice dumplings by hanging. When serving time, steam the glutinous rice dumplings for 10 mins will allow you to serve the rice dumpling warm, go with sweet chilli. You can keep the extra rice dumplings in freezer, re-steam the rice dumpling before serving. 

Nyonya Chang 娘惹粽子 (Nyonya Glutinous Rice Dumpling)

This Nyonya Chang was wrapped in 2017. Time flies and I didn't post it for more than a year, uploading the photos just to record on my cooking. This is a different version of chang, besides the minced pork belly and mushroom and other ingredients, the Nyonya Chang is with winter melon sugar which make the taste distinctive with its sweetness. I'll come back to write the recipe if I have time.