the Nom Lab.

tee-hee :)


Those buns have been one of my weak spots forever. As a kid, I loved munching in one of those big, fat, chewy balls. I usually ate them plain with honey roasted duck or the sweet filled ones with bean paste. My mom used to bring back a little styrofoam box of those when I aced a pop quiz in school or something. Fluffy magic melt-on-your-tongue sweets... I think I can actually relate to how Edmund felt when he first ate the Ice Queen's loukoums (Chronicles of Narnia anyone? p.s. i confess I'm a little book critter).



The steamer had always tempted me, though the thought of using it made me nervous, as I never understood the procedure of vapour cooking. I'm more of an oven gal. Even the wok or pan-frying makes me a bit queasy. I tried my hand at those buns and yay! texture turned out great! I gotta admit that I did an extensive research on buns steaming before though...

As for the filling you see oozing out over here, I improvised some chicken BBQ filling while on the spot so I can't really write out an accurate recipe for it.



Recipe for the dough came from Kitchen Wench (I think it has been linked to yet another blogged there too)

Chinese Steamed Buns
Ingredients
16 squares parchment paper, each 7cm by 7cm in area
350mL warm water
3 tablespoons white sugar
dash salt
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1.5 tablespoons oil
600g plain/all-purpose flour, sifted

1. In a small bowl, mix the sugar and salt in the water, and then mix in the yeast. Let it rest for about 15 mins, or till the surface is covered in frothy yeast

2. Add the oil to the mixture and stir it in to combine

3. In a large bowl, add the flour and make a hole in the centre. Add the liquid to the hole and gradually incorporate the flour till you have a sticky mass.

4. Oil your bench top with a little olive or vegetable oil, them knead the dough on the oiled surface until it forms into an elastic and smooth ball, which takes about 15 minutes. The dough should be elastic and slightly tacky but not so that it sticks to your hands.

5. Roll out the dough into a tube that’s about 5cm in diameter.

6. Slice the tube into 16 loafs. Lay each of the loafs on its cylindrical edge, not the face, on top of a square of parchment paper, and leave for about 20-30mins to rise (or till the surface has become slightly puffy)

7. Shape your buns – if at this time you wish to make filled buns, roll them into a circle, add the filling to the middle then pinch the sides together and give it a slight twist so it doesn’t come undone as it steams. Leave to rest for another 30 minutes.

8. Arrange the loafs in a steamer (which is already madly steaming away). They will expand quite a fair bit so try and leave about 3-5cm around each bun. Cover the steamer and steam over high heat for 15 minutes.

9. Immediately remove from the steamer and place on a plate to cool enough so they can be handled – but they do taste best when they’re still warm from the steamer!