Chinese sausage (LAP CHONG) fried rice

Last week, my mom got a souvenir from her friend, and it's a bag of Lap chong (Chinese sausage, in Thailand we call it gun chiang - กุนเชียง).

Fish Maw Soup

 Chinese New Year is coming and many people's busy preparing all the food and sweet. 

Char Siu Pie (Chinese Barbecue Pork Pie)

 The Chinese new year is coming ^^, so I think we should have some recipe that we can use in the festival.

Chinese Barbecue Pork (Char Siu)

 I want to make Char Siu pie, so I have to make Chinese Barbecue Pork (Char Siu) to use in my pie.

Vegetarian Chinese steamed buns: Chinese steamed buns with Vegetable filling

Every October in Thailand, we have Nine Emperor Gods Festival, that people will eat vegetarian meals all 9-10 days of the Festival. 

Baking powder pork buns (肉まん): Easy and quick snack!

Tomorrow is Chinese New year ^^, I think that it will be good to make something related to this event. 

Chinese Egg Tarts: Delicious little tarts!

Making many kinds of dessert, bread, cake or etc., is fun for me. There are so many thing in this world that I never made it before, and many things that I still can't master, haha. 

Happy Cooking with LG SolarDom: Chinese style steamed egg with minced chicken

 Soft and delicious, well it's a kind of comfort food for me.

Happy Cooking with LG SolarDOM: Steamed Gindara fish with soy sauce

The time for me to play with my LG SolarDOM again ^^, and yes, I still didn't use all the functions!

Aspiring Bakers #3: My Favorite CNY Cookie (Jan 2011) Chinese almond cookies

 I love to bake and well, everything about baking can make me excited, so when I saw a post about  Aspiring Bakers #3: My Favorite CNY Cookie (Jan 2011) in Jess' blog (j3sskitch3n), I really want to join this event. For this year the Chinese New Year is on the 3 of February and having a lot of recipes to choose from is a good idea ^^.

Chicken Farm Bakers' Project # 16: You're My Inspiration ~ * ~ Mooncake recipe from Kate ~*~

This month, Chicken Farm Bakers' Project # 16: You're My Inspiration , host wants all of us to use recipe from the member to find the inspiration , and I'm very lucky that the person whom I have to choose the recipe is Kate.

Last year, Kate came to stay with me for a week, and she's kind enough to teach me how to make Mooncake. So, this time, I want to show her that I can do it on my own, haha, and I think it's not bad at all ^ ^. I know that the festival is past, but it's not a crime to enjoy this delicious cake at any times of the year.
Even it's not a traditional filling but in Thailand we use the durian paste for the filling, it's delicious and very easy too. But if you can't find it or don't like the smell of it, you can use the custard filling instead (my mother doesn't like the durian, so I have to bake this for her).

The most important thing that you must have, if you want to make the moon cake, is the mold. There are many kinds of it, but this time I just got the traditional one that made from crafted wood. This kind of mold needed to be prepared by cover the drain hole (it's at the side of the mold) with the adhesive tape, and pour the vegetable oil into it, and let the wood absorbs the oil. The oil will prevent the dough to stick to the mold without using too much flour, so an imprint will be deep and beautiful.

It's fun to make but I have to admit that my arm felt tried after making it, haha.

- the mooncake from the mold -

It's not hard to make the mooncake at home, esp. when you use the prepared filling, but it's time consuming process can be a little problem. So, plan ahead, because you have to prepare the syrup, and wait until it's cool, then make the flour mixture that you'll have to let it rest overnight. And if you use the custard filling, you'll have to make it, let it's cool and refrigerate overnight too.
Then, the next day, everything will be easier, just mix the flour, divide the flour and filling into a ball. After that your arm will take all the responsibility, ^ ^.

When baking the mooncake, first round is for cooking it, but after that, you have to bake it until the color of the mooncake is golden brown. It may take longer, or shorter than the given time, so you have to stand by in front of the oven >*<. So, welcome you to see the result of my inspiration from my friend "Kate" ^ ^, the mooncake.

Mooncake
Makes about 40-50 pieces
(small size depend on the size of the mold)

Dough
	Syrup
	250g	Sugar
	2tsp	Lime juice
	175g	Water
	Baking soda mixture
	2tsp	Baking soda
	2tbsp	Water
	Flour (1)
	200g	Pastry flour (or mixture of half all-purpose flour and cake flour)
	100g	Vegetable oil
	215g	Syrup
	½ tbsp	Baking soda mixture
	Flour (2)
	150g	Pastry flour (or mixture of half all-purpose flour and cake flour)
Durian Filling (for 40-50 pieces)
	1400-1750g	Durian paste
	120-150g	Watermelon seed
	160-200g	Salted egg yolks
Custard Filling (for 40-50 pieces)
	400g	Sugar
	400g	Butter
	100g	All-purpose flour
	50g	Corn flour
	100g	Milk powder
	100g	Custard powder
	10	Eggs
	2tbsp	Vanilla extract
Egg wash
	2	Egg yolks
	2tbsp	water

Make the syrup by put all the ingredients together in a pan, put over medium low heat until the thermometer register 118°C.
Pour the syrup into the cup and let it cool to the room temperature.

When the syrup's cool, mix the baking soda with the water, set aside.
Put the flour in the mixing bowl.
Pour the syrup , vegetable oil and ½ tbsp of the baking soda mixture into the flour.
Mix until combine, then cover the bowl with plastic and let the batter rest overnight.

If you want to use custard filling, you have to prepare.
Put all the ingredient into the pan and put over low heat, whisk constantly until it's thicken.

Let the custard cool, then cover with the plastic and refrigerate overnight.

Next day
Pour the flour(2) into the batter, and knead until combine.

Preheat the oven to 180°C (or preheat it 20 minutes before you baking the mooncake).

Put some of the dough into the mold, and take the dough out.
Weight the dough and divide the weight with 4, you will get the weight of the dough per piece.

Divide the dough, and roll the dough into the ball.

Weight the filling using the 3/4 of the total weight.
I use 35g of durian paste and 3g of watermelon seed.
Roll the filling into a ball.

Put the salted egg yolk into the center of the filling cover it, then cover with the dough.

If using the custard filling, roll the dough into a circle and place the filling inside.
Cover the filling with the dough.


Lightly flour the dough, press the prepared ball into the mold, and tap the mold by tapping 2 side then then top (as shown in the picture), the dough will come out beautifully.

Place the dough into the baking pan.
Bake for 10 minutes, take the pan out and brush the side of the mooncake bake for 5 minutes, take the pan out and brush the top of the mooncake for 5 minutes or until the mooncake are well brown.

Chicken Farm Bakers' Project # 16:
You're My Inspiration ~ * ~ Mooncake recipe from Kate ~*~

Chinese Steamed Buns with Minced Pork

Not too easy but not hard to make if you know how to knead bread, this is a simple meal by itself, and delicious too. This one of my favorite from childhood time, we usually have these buns on festival or family gathering, talking, eating and drinking tea, what a lovely day (even I finished consuming too many buns, I still love it). This is quite a huge recipe for a small family so I include the half recipe so you can make and enjoy them without having too much left because this bun is more delicious when freshly made. And when you have a lot of creativity, you can use other kind of filling, like custard, shrimp, sweet bean paste and etc. So, don’t be timid, give it a try and you will love to have a little ethic bun at home (and you make it by yourself too).

Note: It will be good if you can find pastry flour because the pastry flour will give the right among of gluten in this recipe but you can use half cake flour and half all purpose flour instead of the pastry flour.

Chinese Steamed Buns with Minced Pork

Makes about 35-37 for large recipe or 17-19 for small recipe

Sponge
Large	Small
375 g	190 g	Pastry flour
10 g / 1tbsp	5 g / ½ tbsp	Instant yeast
10 g / 1tbsp	5 g / ½ tbsp	Sugar
225 g / 1cup	113 g / ½ cup	Water

Sift the flour, and combine flour and yeast.

Dissolve the sugar in the water and pour into flour mixture, mix until soft and smooth (picture 1).

Let the sponge rise for 60 minutes, the sponge will be almost double in volume (picture 2).

It will look like a sponge (picture 3).

While waiting for the sponge to be ready, make the minced pork filling.

Minced pork filling
Large	Small
300 g	150 g	Minced pork
225 g	115 g	whole water chestnuts, finely diced
20 g	10 g	Sugar
½ tsp	¼ tsp	Salt
2 tbsp	1 tbsp	Soy sauce
2 tbsp	1 tbsp	Oyster sauce
1 tbsp	½ tbsp	Sesame oil
2 tsp	1 tsp	Grounded pepper
1 tsp	½ tsp	Corn starch
2	1	Spring onions (chopped)
2	1	Dried shitake (soaked and chopped into small pieces)

Put the minced pork in a bowl of a mixer fitted with paddle and beat until sticky, put all the ingredients except shitake and spring onion and beat to combine.

Mix the shitake and spring onion into the pork mixture, beat to combine.

Cut into portion (it will be easier to put the filling in a pan and cut into portion).

Cover with the plastic wrap and put in the fridge until use.

Dough
Large	Small
150 g	75 g	Pastry flour
5 g / 2 tsp	2.5 g/ 1 tsp	Baking powder
40 g	20 g	Water
100 g	50 g	Sugar
4 g / 1 tsp	2 g / ½ tsp	Salt
50 g	25 g	Vegetable oil
		Sponge

Sift together flour and baking powder into a bowl and mix in the sugar and salt; make a well in the center.

Pour the water into the center and place the sponge on top and mix to combine.

Pour the vegetable oil on top and knead to combine.

Take the dough out of the bowl and knead until smooth and elastic.

Then cut into pieces (you can weight and cut into pieces or cut into 30g/ piece: about 35-37 for large recipe and 17-19 for small recipe). Roll the dough into a ball.

Flatten each ball with the palm of your hand into a 3" diameter circle. Place a filling mixture in center of each dough round, and gather up edges to enclose filling, twisting edges together and pressing to seal and place over paper baking cup. Repeat with remaining dough and filling, covering buns with plastic wrap.

Let the buns rise until double in volume, about 30 minutes.

Cook in a steamer for about 12 minutes taking care to leave each bun enough space to expand. Do not open the steamer while the buns are cooking. Serve warm.

Adaptation from this web forum (in Thai language)