I promised I would make something delicious, and here it is.

If you’re a fan of dim sum and Hong-Kong style bakeries, then you are no stranger to custard, which is something very different from what we imagine in the west.

Western custard is something like a creme brulee, pudding, or flan; moist, wobbly, gently crafted from eggs and milk. Eastern-style custard, as it applies to fillings anyway, is dry, almost grainy, but has a delicious eggy flavor. A bit sweet, a bit salty, wondefully rich, and unlike a french cream pastry, doesn’t spurt out cream all over the place when you bite into it.

This is my first attempt at such a custard, and I’m working with some new ingredients. Custard buns use as their filling base not chicken yolks, but salted duck egg yolks which I covered in my previous post.  These yolks have the fantastic quality of being firm and pliable, the consistency of cold butter, and give the custard its rich and sweet-salty taste.

This recipe also uses custard powder, which can be found in asian grocery stores.  Milk powder, AKA powdered milk, you should be able to find in any supermarket in the baking aisle.

I recommend using a stand mixer, if you’ve got one, for this – it will make your life a LOT easier. Also, a scale will help immensely. I’ve approximated the volume for those who don’t.

Here is the original recipe I’m working from. Since this was my first time making these, I stuck to the recipe as much as I could. But since I had leaf lard just lying around in my freezer, it substitutes the vegetable shortening.

Custard Buns

Adapted from Chinese Desserts by Lilian Cheng

The filling:

• 3 cooked salty egg yolks (to prepare, separate out the yolks and cook for 8 minutes at 350 in a greased pan)
• 4 tbsp custard powder 
• 4 tbsp milk powder
• 4 tbsp powdered sugar
• 5 tbsp shortening (I used leaf lard)
• 2 tbsp melted butter

• 200g plain flour (about 1.5 cups)
• 50g granulated sugar (about a third of a cup)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp milk
• 2 tsp shortnening (I used leaf lard)
• 80 ml water (about 1/3 cup)

For the filling:

1. Force the salted egg yolks through a strainer to make sure any bits of cooked white are removed.
   

   Forcing egg yolks through a sieve

2. In a stand mixer, mix well with the other ingredients until it forms a smooth mass (it should look a bit like cookie dough)
3. Cover a surface with cling wrap and pour out the custard filling, form into a log.
4. Wrap and refrigerate until firm.
5. Divide the log into 9 pieces, and knead into balls, then refrigerate until needed.

For the dough:

1. Sift together the flour, baking powder and sugar.
2. Fold in the shortening (or lard), milk and water.
3. Knead until it forms a smooth dough.
4. Cover with cloth and let sit for half an hour.

To put together the buns, knead the dough into a log, divide into 9 portions.

Divide the dough into parts.

Use a rolling pin to press each one.

Rolling the dough.

Place a ball of filling in the center of each, and wrap the dough around the filling. pinching to close.

Fold..

And fold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Place seams down onto parchment paper.Steam for 15 minutes in a steamer (I have an electric one, but a bamboo steamer in a pot works fine, or one of those steamer baskets with a few levels to them).

Verdict? They turned out pretty damn well, although sweeter than I’d like. Next time I would add some salt to the filling and cut back on the sugar. I also think I kneaded the dough a little too long – its supposed to be very light and fluffy.
Otherwise…SUCCESS!

Hi everyone,

I know I promised you a post, but life has recently gotten in the way of that.

I was let go from my job two weeks ago, and my previously busy life has turned upside-down. You’d think that I would be eager to take my sudden glut of free time and start really devoting time to the project, but so far that has not been the case.

What they don’t tell you when you suddenly have a ton of free time are all the things you totally forgot about doing when you’re working all hours – things like cleaning the apartment and going to the gym and having your first summer in years where you actually go out in the sunshine.

Don’t forget the obligatory ‘I’m depressed I don’t have a job period.’ Which I think I’m over now.

Anyway, enough about me and my sorry unemployed ass – I think ‘m ready to come back to this project and really devote some time to it. I mean, its not like I have anything better to do at the moment.

I promised (like, two months ago, now) that the next thing I tackle would be something people actually want to eat. But it wouldn’t be EWPP without a strange ingredient, so first I present…

SALTED DUCK EGGS.

available at your local asian supermarket.

This is not what you think, or at least what initially came to mind for me: a hardboiled duck egg with salt on it. Not so much. Turns out that Salted Duck Eggs are eggs preserved by soaking duck eggs in brine, or packing them in salted charcoal.

This process causes the egg to have a sharp-tasting, liquid white, and a dark orange, firm, fatty yolk.

Pliable yolks without a water bath? BRILLIANT!

The yolk is what I’m after, in this case – it’s apparently that salty ‘something’ one finds in the custard filling of HK-style buns, and a whole yolk is often baked into mooncakes.

Many people are fascinated by eggs, and rightly so – its amazing to me that something like a soak in brine would cause such a dramatic change to the yolk and white. Although I didn’t pick up any 1000-year-old eggs, I hear that they are even more so: a white that has become completely solid and clear. Crazy.

I’ve never worked with Salted duck eggs before, but I am reading that they are often boiled and used as a supplement to congee (a chinese porridge).

It looks like the way to prepare the yolks for use are to oil a baking sheet and bake the yolks at 350 degrees, for eight minutes.

I’m having a lot of fun with the raw yolk, though: its solid and pliant, like play dough, which allows all sorts of fun things, like rolling it so thin it lets light pass.

A raw yolk, rolled thin.

Turns out that baking them (as people usually seem to do) makes it lose that beautiful color and translucent quality. If I had sousvide stuff, I would try that method. Maybe steaming would work as well.

Sorry for not posting in a bit. I took a 10 day vacation to Tahoe and Sonoma – which was AWESOME – and it was a vacation from all things, not just work but all blogging and research. I am attempting to get back into the swing of research and whatnot. The funny thing is that I’ve probably done more cooking since the start of my vacation than ever – it’s so great to have that kind of free time – but unfortunately none of it was related to this particular project.

More to come.

So..the finished product of tapioca jelly.

I’ve decided that either I am doing something fundamentally wrong, or this is only meant to be used in other dishes, because this is easily the most foul thing I’ve ever made.

My husband saw it and said, ‘You made Red Slime!” and he’s basically right.

It looks…okay. I mean, it’s translucent and jelly-like as it should be. It has the consistency of grape jelly, if that’s a reference.

If grape jelly tasted like nothing, with a strangely powdery and chemically after-taste.

I don’t know, there’s something about the taste, or maybe it’s the texture with a complete lack of taste, that’s simply horrifying. I could only stand a fingerful before I wanted to hurl.

Using the syrup from the nata de coco jar I had in my pantry was apparently a bad move. Instead of making it taste sweet and coconut-y, as I hoped, it just tastes..wrong.

Really, really wrong.

As in, I would only serve this to someone as a form of torture. It would be right up there with waterboarding.

Also, its good to know that tapioca in pearl form is (I think) NOT the same as boba. Boba keep thier shape, while these dissolved into goo with just a little heat. I guess.

Maybe when it’s smothered in coconut cream it’s delicious and (like many things in eastern sweets) there for the texture, I don’t know.

OKAY. I PROMISE THE NEXT THING WILL BE SOMETHING TASTY. Fur Realz.

Well, I’m still working on making a proper cassava (tapioca) jelly. I know you guys must be THRILLED.

And definitely not thinking, holy shit, when is she going to make something I would actually want to eat?

The kicker is that if I make successful cassava jelly I don’t really know what I’ll do with it. Although burbur-cha-cha sounds like it might be kind of good.

It’s annoying to me that I haven’t yet had a successful attempt at making this yet, which is why I’m currently stuck on it.

Multiple attempts at the tapioca-flour method have fallen flat, and by flat I mean straight into the garbage. It seems no matter what I do, I get these hard little bits of powder that are frankly gross and unappetizing.

Today I’m trying the other method, which calls for pearl-shaped tapioca, which is soaked for several hours, and then simmer until clear. At which point you can sweeten it, add a bit of coconut milk and hey, presto, something that actually sounds pretty good.

I really would like an end product that actually LOOKS like a jelly, firm enough to cut and add to other things.

So far, so good. I’ve soaked these tapioca pearls all day, and they’re dissolving, which is what I want, I think.

I’m simmering it over low heat, and it seems to be jelling alright.

Adding a piece of rock sugar, to make it a bit sweet…and maybe some red food coloring, since I really like how it looks in some other preparations. I also added some chunks of young coconut with a bit of the syrup. (Young coconut is…well, you get three guesses. Unlike…old?..coconut, it has an almost gelatinous texture and mild, sweet flavor.)

I’m hoping that if I pour it out and let it cool in the fridge it will firm up just like jello. A girl can dream, right?

I came across a call in a Chinese recipe for ‘cassava jelly, which can be found in north Chouzhou grocery stores.’

Not…terribly helpful. An internet search brings up very little as well.

So Cassava is a starchy, woody-looking tuber which is used the world over as a culinary staple. Also known as Yuca, or Manioc. It does feature in several sweet preparations, often in a grated and boiled form, and the dried cassava starch is also known as….Tapioca.

Alright, now we’re getting somewhere!

Okay, so Tapioca is often used to help gel things. Tapioca starch is found in gluten free cooking, and tapioca balls, AKA boba balls, have become pretty popular in the US.

Could it be the recipe is talking about boba? Or something else?

A bit more digging..tapioca is often found commercially in flakes, sticks, or ball form. It’s not entirely clear if pure tapioca in ball form is the same as boba balls.

Apparently boba is NOT the same as sago, although the names are sometimes used interchangeably and in the west, often only tapioca can be found. (Sago are ALSO small balls that become jelly-like when cooked and is something that’s pretty commonly called for in these recipes)

SO, if we assume that they are, in fact, talking about tapioca jelly and/or boba balls, that opens up things considerably. Sort of.

Turns out that there are different ways to prepare tapioca jelly. I’m not even sure if this is the same thing.

According to Wikipedia,

‘A typical recipe for tapioca jelly can be made by washing 2 tablespoonfuls of tapioca, pouring a pint of water over it, and soaking for three hours. It is then placed over low heat and simmered until quite clear. If too thick, a little boiling water can be added. It can be sweetened with white sugar, flavored with coconut milk or a little wine, and eaten alone or with cream.’

Rasamalaysia has a recipe for ‘tapioca flour jelly’ as part of another recipe. This combines tapioca flour and boiling water, combined to form a dough which is then rolled out and cut.

I am going to try both ways and see which one I want to use in the recipe I originally found it in. Honestly, that recipe (a mung bean sweet soup) doesn’t sound totally exciting, so maybe this is just procrastination.

UPDATE:

SO, I just tried making some tapioca jelly with rasamalaysia’s flour method.

Some notes:

• Tapioca starch is EXTREMELY STICKY when the hot water hits it. Proceed with caution. The dough stuck to damn near everything.
• Sift the tapioca starch before you work with it, or you’ll get lots of little white lumps in your dough that no amount of mixing will remove.
• Add the water a little bit at a time, stirring constantly until it becomes a dough.
• Tapioca jelly kind of tastes like nothing. This makes me think that its on of those things you often see in chinese cooking, where it’s there for texture.
• Okay, apparently you are supposed to boil bits of the dough until it becomes chewy and translucent. Thank god, because the raw stuff is really gross.

I didn’t get to the rolling out part of it, but my gut tells me that it would be best to do on saran wrap or baking paper powdered with sugar or more starch.

Will keep you posted on take two..

Apologies for the strange format of some of these posts – I am still trying to figure out a recipe format that makes sense and in a way that reflects my process. I am going to start including the original ingredient list (with attribution of course) so that you can see where I began and what I had to work with.

Several new ingredients debut in this recipe that I had to track down – actually, almost all of them. Turns out this was quite an adventure – the almonds aren’t actually almonds, lotus seeds were something completely different than I’d thought, and I can’t deny that I said, ‘White Fungus? WTF is that?”

Also, they don’t specify what SORT of rice to use in this recipe. Perhaps they do in the Chinese portion, but that doesn’t exactly help me.

The recipe does take quite a bit of time, although largely unattended. The lotus seeds, fungus, almonds and rice all require at least an hour of soaking (recommended time for the lotus seeds is two hours), so be sure to factor this time into account when you attempt this recipe. The original recipe also requires ‘a muslin bag’ for straining, but I think cheesecloth should probably work fine.

following the original recipe to the letter, I got a soup that tasted okay but had horrible texture. I think that maybe I didn’t strain the liquid finely enough – there are still little bits of almond in there, which don’t seem to get soft.  Also, I don’t think I care for how the lotus seeds turned out – they seem starchy and grainy and not very nice.

Here is the original recipe . This one is going to take some tweaking, I think – stay tuned.

Almond Tea with White Fungus and Lotus Seeds (original recipe) – from 100 Chinese Desserts by Winnie

• 80 grams sweet almonds
• 20 grams bitter almonds
• 100 grams rock sugar
• 10 grams white fungus
• 20 grams lotus seeds (about 20 seeds)
• 2 tablespoons of rice

1. Soak the lotus seeds, two hours. Remove the ‘germ’ of the seeds, if there are any.
2. Soak the fungus until soft.
3. Soak almonds and rice for an hour.
4. Cook lotus seed in 3 cups water for half an hour.  Add fungus and cook another half hour. Add rock sugar and cook until dissolved.
5. Blend the almonds and rice with 2 cups of water in a blender – strain through muslin/cheesecloth.
6. Add almond juice to lotus and fungus in sugar syrup.
7. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently.
8. Serve hot.

As I said, I was *not* happy with the outcome of this original recipe. Let me know if any of you have better results, but I’m going to tweak this one until I come out with something I’d actually eat. The taste has potential, just a matter of making it work.

Stay tuned..

I’d heard of lotus seed before, but the only way I’d ever encountered it was in it’s candied form at Vietnamese New Year, and as lotus seed paste in candies. I’d never worked with the raw material. The lotus, Nelumbo nucifera, is a fresh-water plant found in semi-tropical areas. The iconography of the lotus is often found in eastern culture, and the plant is widely used, both the seeds as well as the rhizome. The rhizome can be found fresh in many asian markets as well as canned or dried. I’ve only come across the seeds in the dried form.

Many recipes tell you to ‘remove the poles’ after soaking, which I assume is the bitter germ inside the seed. However, I’m reasonably sure mine came pre-poled, as there seemed to be nothing to remove.

Ingredient Name:

Lotus seed

Description:

A small round seed, about the size of a hazelnut.

Tastes like:

In its dried form, they are too hard to eat out of hand. In it’s boiled form A little starchy, like a garbanzo bean but with a slightly different flavor.

Preparation:

Soak for at least two hours, then boil until soft.

Find it:

I had no trouble finding this at my local asian grocery store. They are sold in bags (See picture)

Of the ingredients I’ve come across so far, this was one of the strangest and most intriguing. I was worried that due to its exotic nature, that it would be hard to find; but the opposite seems to be true. It sounds very strange to me, the idea of putting a ‘fungus’ (gosh, could they pick a worse name in English?) in dessert seems off putting. However, the use of ‘sweet’ fungi seems to be gaining ground, especially in the forager community’s use of candy caps – I mean heck, there’s even a candy cap ice cream flavor here in San Francisco. Okay, we’re probably the exception there.

Ingredient Name:

White Fungus

Also known as:

Snow fungus, Silver Ear Fungus, Tremella Fuciformis

Description:

White, lacy fronds, translucent, forming into an oblong mass. Looks delicate, but in its dried form surprisingly tough. In Chinese medicine it is thought to boost the immune system and lower blood pressue, as well as have cancer fighting properties.

Tastes like:

Out of the package, fairly tasteless, a bit like apple cider vinegar but that may be whatever was used to preserve it.  Cooked, it is similarly tasteless, used more for its gelatinous texture rather than taste. Think like a par-boiled rice noodle, kind of. Not unpleasant, but a strange texture for one unused to it.

Preparation:

Soak for at least half an hour in a bowl of water until soft. Measurement is based on the dry weight. Boil and use as an additive to sweet soups. Not eaten in it’s raw, dried form – not sure how it is fresh.

Find it:

As snow fungus has become easier to cultivate, it can be found more frequently here in the states – I had no problem finding some at my local asian market. You can also find it here, online:

[amazon_link id="B000LTMDLY" target="_blank" ]Premium Quality White Snow Fungus Mushroom – 4.0 Oz – (Tremella fuciformis) – Unbleached[/amazon_link]

Substitutions:

Not sure if there are decent substitutions, certainly if you want to try out the health benefits of White Fungus. From a taste/texture standpoint, supposedly birds nest is very similar, but I’m not sure if you would have any of that lying around as it is rather expensive. I’d think one could also set unflavored gelatin and add strips of it to your recipe to simulate the texture. Otherwise, simply leave it out.

Resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tremella_fuciformis

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-snow-fungus.htm

http://www.herbs2000.com/herbs/herbs_snow_fungus.htm