Pearl Balls ( 珍珠丸子) Meatballs with Sticky Rice

 One of the food that I really like, and never become bored is dim sum, the variation and the taste are always interesting.

Eggsalut: Poached egg with mashed potato for your happy morning!

 Breakfast is the most exciting meal for me, as I always wake up hungry, haha.

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. 

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!

April 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge #39: Steamed Pudding, Spotted Dick

I feel like the time fly, it's a Daring Bakers' challenge again. It's seen like a long time since I start being a Daring Bakers member. I remember the time that I feel so exciting to receive the email telling me that I'm the one who can be called "Daring bakers".

I follow this group for a long time, and love to see all the 
creation that every members make it, and I wish I can be one of them. Until the October 2007, I started making my blog and I got enough courage to write the application to be one of the Daring Bakers members.
And I must say that I try not to skip the challenge, even sometime, I'm not feeling well. Like this month, I have a little health problem (not much but it makes me want to sleep rather than baking, haha). So after reading the 6 page longs challenge, I felt " I couldn't make it". Because I didn't get anything, like the element of the challenge or what the host want us to do. -* - 
Anyway, just 2 day before, I felt so much better and I try to read again and, and now I know that this challenge is not that hard or long as the paragraph, it's easy and interesting.


 The required elements of this challenge are:
1) to make a suet pudding using real suet or as close a replacement as you can manage or is acceptable to you; and
2) to cook it by steaming or if you want to be even more traditional by boiling tied up in a cloth.


So, both of the elements are not hard to follow ^ ^. For the Pudding, I choose to make the traditional English pudding with a name "Spotted Dick", the sweet steam pudding with current and peel but I can't find suet (it's not easy to find it in Thailand) so I use the Crisco instead of the suet. And luckily I have a steamer so I can use it, and this way is easier than  traditional way by boiling tied up in a cloth. And this month I still keep on the challenge like I want to, haha.
I don't know what kind of breadcrumb is the right one, but I think the fresh one will be a lot better, as it give the pudding a moisture and the taste is better. I serve this pudding warm with a lot of vanilla sauce, and all I can say is "It's delicious!"

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

Steamed Pudding, Spotted Dick

Makes 1 litre/ 2pint pudding 

Type 2 puddings – Steamed Suet Pudding, sponge type.
(100 grams/4 ounces) All-purpose flour
(1/4 teaspoon) salt
(1.5 teaspoons) Baking powder
(100 grams/4 ounces) breadcrumbs (dailydelicious note: use fresh one)
(75 grams/3 ounces) Caster sugar
(75g/3oz) currants 
(25g/1 oz) mixed chopped peel
(75 grams/ 3 ounces) Shredded suet or suet substitute (i.e., Vegetable Suet, Crisco, Lard)
(1) large egg
(6 to 8 tablespoons) Cold milk

Vanilla sauce to serve

1. Sift flour, salt and baking powder into bowl.
2. Add breadcrumbs,currants, mixed chopped peel sugar and suet.
3. Mix to a soft batter with beaten egg and milk

4. Turn into a buttered 1 litre/ 2pint pudding basin  (I use small pudding tin)and cover securely with buttered greaseproof paper or aluminum foil.

5. Steam steadily for 2.5-3 hours (for the small one steam for 1.5 hours).

6. Turn out onto warm plate, Serve with sweet sauce to taste such as custard, caramel or a sweetened fruit sauce.

April 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge #39: 

Steamed Pudding, Spotted Dick

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)