Cantonese Egg Tarts II 港式蛋挞

Over the years, I've made egg tarts on few occasions. The result mostly looked rough and rustic but this time these tarts look  like the real deal! That said, am still trying to achieve a melt in the mouth lighter crust. Mine have slight chewy tart shell. I'll have to work on my short crust pastry technique. However, the filling is exactly what I'm looking for.

Cantonese Egg Tarts

serves : 12-15 tarts

I have halved the recipe from Guai Shu Shu

Ingredients

For tart shells 

1 egg (lightly beaten) 

220 grams of plain flour (sifted) 

40 grams of icing sugar (sifted) 

100 grams of chilled butter (cut into cubes) 

1/2 teaspoon of vanilla essence (optional) 

For egg custard filling   

220 grams of fresh milk 

75 grams of castor sugar 

2 eggs 

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence (optional) 

Pre-heat the oven to 180°c

In a big mixing bowl, put butter cubes and sifted plain flour together. Use the finger tips to rub the butter cubes and flours together until it become crumby. Add in sifted icing sugars and continue to rub until well mix.

Add lightly beaten eggs and vanilla essence, mix slowly until it become a dough. Put it in the fridge to chill for 20-30 minutes. Note that if you are able to handle soft dough, you can by pass this step. Take the dough from the fridge and use a rolling pin to roll it into a flat sheet with about 0.5 cm thickness.

Use a round cutter to cut about the size of the mould.  Note that this step is optional and will help you to roughly gauge the amount of dough required and you still need to adjust the quantity of dough as you progress.  Use your hand to press the dough against the sides and make it as even as possible. Use a knife or anything sharp to cut off the sides. If preferred, use a fork to lightly make some holes to let any trapped air to escape.  However, this step of making hole is optional. Set aside for later use.

For crispier crust, bake the tart shell in the pre-heated oven of 180 degree Celsius for 10 minutes. However, this step is also optional. 

For filling :-
In a microwavable bowl or mug, heat the milk until boiling hot (if you do not have a microwave oven, just heat the milk over the stove). Set aside for the next step. 

In a big mixing bowl, put egg, sugar and vanilla essence. Use a hand whisk to beat until well mixed. Pour the hot milk to the mixture and use a sift to sieve the custard mixture. 

Pour the custard mixture to the pre-baked tart shells. 
  
Bake the egg tarts in the pre-heated oven of 180˙c for 10-15 minutes. Once the tarts starts to puff up a bit, open the oven door, leave the door ajar and continue to bake the tarts for another 5 –8 minutes. A tart is considered as baked when a toothpick inserted in the centre of the tart, the toothpick stands upright. The tarts is best served warm when the custard is still soft and crust crispy.

Turnip Dumplings / Soon Kueh / 菜粿

Never in my life I would thought of making these dumplings. But living in a foreign land, over time you'd learn to just stuck into making the street foods that you love. Often times, it is manageable, not that hard to recreate and most importantly gain confidence in your cooking ability ;)

Some notes for this recipe for my own reference:-
1) Halved the recipe. Would yield 7-8 large dumplings
2) Since I ran out of rice flour, I used plain flour to top up the difference. No effect textures wise.
3) Used 1 medium sized kohlrabi in replacement of jicama

Turnip Dumpling / Jicama Dumplings / Vegetable dumplings / 菜粿
Thanks to My Kitchen Snippets

Ingredients for the wrappers:
 
300g rice flour
100g tapioca flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp oil
600ml water
Some extra tapioca flour for dusting
 
1. Sieve rice flour and tapioca flour into a big pot.
2. Boil 600ml water with salt. When boiled, pour into the flour and quickly stir with a big spoon till flour is well distributed and cooked.
3. Pour cooked dough on to floured table top. Add in 2 tbsp oil and knead well till smooth, adding more tapioca flour if necessary. Set the dough aside to rest for 10 minutes.
4. Wet your hands with water and knead dough again till smooth and pliable. Cover dough with dry towel to prevent drying.
5. Roll dough out thinly and round cookie cutter to cut out some round shape wrappers.
6. Fill each wrapper with 1m- 1 1/2 tbsp of filling and fold into a semi circle. Seal edges by pinching the sides together.
7. Place kueh on greased steaming trays, sprinkle with some water and steam over high heat for 10 minutes. When kueh puffs up, it is ready. Remove and brush with shallot oil.
8. To serve, sprinkle kueh with fried crispy shallots and dredge with some dark sweet sauce and chili sauce.

Ingredients for fillings:
600g bangkwang (jicama)
1 carrot
100g dried prawns (washed)
5 dried mushrooms (soaked and sliced)
300g shredded pork (optional)
3 tbsp cooking oil
5 cloves garlic, chopped
Seasoning:
1 tsp light soya sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp sugar
salt to taste
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 cup water

1. Skin turnip and carrot. Cut into thin strips.
2. Heat oil in wok, fry chopped garlic and dried prawns till fragrant. Add in the shredded pork (if used), sliced mushrooms, carrot and jicama strips.
3. Add seasoning and some water and stir fry till turnips are soft and ingredients are almost dry. Dish up and leave aside to cool completely before using. 

Hungarian Steamed Buns { Gőzgombóc }

Going forward, I'll switch to this Hungarian steamed buns recipe when making Chinese steamed buns. Unlike my previous chinese recipes, this produced buns which were so light and fluffy! It has to be said that they are best eaten hot out of the steamer. If you do have left over, then re-steam for short few minutes to soften it again.

Gőzgombóc

serves : 6 pcs.

You must go to the source for a detailed pictorial at Aprosef

Ingredients :-

Dumpling

250gm Flour

15gm yeast

20gm sugar

1 gm salt

1/2 egg yolk

1/2 egg (size “m”)

125ml Milk (2.8%)

10gm butter

1 lemon zest

Stuffing

60gm plum jam, thick divided into 6

To serve with

egg custard

ground poppy seeds

Preparation :-

1. Mix all ingredients for dumplings, knead until a smooth round shape. Place shaped dough in a greased bowl. Grease also the top of dough. Coer with cling film. Let it rest at warm place for 60 mins. Or until size doubled.
2. Once dough doubled in size, roll out and divide into 6 smaller balls. Use you hand flatten it a bit and wrapped in the portioned jam. Take note the jam should be stuffed in centre to avoid leakage. Close dough by pinching it. Shape into nice round.
3. Set aside the stuffed dough. Cover with cling film. Meanwhile set the steamer and when water is boiling. Steam dough on high heat for 15 mins.
4. Serve with custard and sprinkle with ground poppy seeds.

Coconut custard puff / Kaya Puff / Kaya kok / 加央角

Couple of days ago, photo of this Malaysian pastry appeared on my facebook feed. Since there are some left-over baking ingredients from xmas and new year, I couldn't resist baking again!

Kaya literally means rich in Malay ; while in the food dictionary it is known as a type of Coconut custard

Go check out the recipe and step-by-step at My simple food

I'm satisfy with this recipe. with some tweaking :-

1) Butter sold over here is unsalted ; hence, I would add 1/4 tsp of salt to bring the pastry to life.

2) Additional 10 mins. in the oven to further brown the pastry.

Cantonese Egg Tart { 蛋挞 }

Egg Tarts is a popular dessert amongst the Cantonese community. The tart shell should be flaky and light while the egg custard silky smooth. As you can see from mine, it is neither :D. I'm still in the process of refining my technique. The reason I'm posting here is to note down the recipes that I've followed.

Cantonese Egg Tart { 蛋挞 }

For the tart shells, recipe from Anncoo Journal

125g Cold butter - cut to cubes

120g Icing sugar, sifted

1 Egg

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

320g Plain flour - sifted

• Cream butter and icing until light and fluffy. Add in egg and mix well.
• Pour in flour and mix for few seconds, stop machine.
• Use a rubber spatula to fold the flour mixture into a soft dough.
• Put soft dough in a plastic bag and chill in the fridge for 30 mins or freezer for 20 mins.
• Divide the pastry into 15 small balls and evenly press into 15 tart moulds. If you find the pastry is too soft and sticky, just return it to the fridge to harden a little.
• Prick the bottom of the pastry with a fork to allow steam to escape as the shell bakes.
• Bake in preheated oven at 180C for 10 minutes or until lightly brown. Remove from oven and leave to cool.

For the filling , recipe from Yummy Bakes
200g boiling water

150g sugar

5 eggs

250g fresh milk

1. Dissolve sugar in boiling water, let it cool, add egg and fresh milk.  Do not beat, just stir and mix.
2. Strain the mixture and pour into the pre-baked tart shells  Bake at 180C for 20 mins or until cooked.

Dim sum ~ Chinese steamed bun

I have left over baked meat balls in the fridge and wanted to use some as filling for Chinese steamed buns ; one of my favourites dum sum. Searching my bookmarks I decided upon Lily's layered pau's dough as I have all ingredients in my pantry.

I have tried making chinese steamed buns before without much success. I think it was due to my lack of natural touch for kneading. However, I'm satisfied with how this dough turned out. The scent of the buns when freshly steamed was very much like the ones I had at home. One negative was the dough wasn't leaven fully ; perhaps due to the old instant yeast I had in the pantry.

Chinese steamed bun

Dough
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp yeast
1/2 tsp baking powder*
2 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk, warm
1 tbsp oil

To make the dough:

1) Mix together warmed milk, sugar and yeast. Set aside to ferment. It is ready when mixture is frothy.

2) In another bowl, mix flour and salt. Create well in the centre of the bowl and pour in the yeast mixture and oil.

3) Knead dough. let dough rise until it is double in bulk.

4) Before you divide the dough, roll the dough into a rectangle and mix baking powder with a little water and spread it onto the surface, roll it up and knead dough until it is well mixed and smooth. Then divide dough in to dough into 4 portions.

5) Spray or grease a pan with oil and line with parchment paper.


6) Roll each portion into thin circle and put in your choice of filling (it can be sweet or savoury) . Seal by pinching the edge together and place of steaming tray.

7) Brush top of dough with oil to prevent drying out.

8) Let it rest for 30 - 45 minutes and in the meantime, bring the water in a steamer to the boil.

9) When dough has rested and risen, put into steamer and steam on high heat for 35 minutes until a skewer comes out clean when pricked into the middle of the bun.

10) Let cake cool a bit and serve warm.

Read Lily's how-to on pleating bun

Chinese Radish Cake (萝卜糕)

After whatching this episode of vacsoracsata ( a local tv celebs cooking challenge show) and based on the reviews , I had wanted to try the retek salátá (radish salad). I bought a small radish since winter is the best season for radish but after a week of constant searching for the recipe online, I couldn't find the recipe used on the show! (until after i've cooked it , of course). Then I decided to make this chinese dim sum radish cake. My version is without any meat, mushrooms or dried shrimps as most of the recipes would use. Still it tasted fine and I love it as light diner :)....Read more on Wiki

Chinese Radish rice Cake
recipe from here (the link doesn't seem to work...)

Ingredients
2 c radish
4 tsp salt
4 tsp oil
8-10 strips bacon or ham **omitted**
1 1/2 c rice powder
2 c chicken broth or water

Serve with
Hoisin sauce
Shreded carrots
Chopped spring onions

Method
Shred radish; add salt. Heat oil, add radish and cook until half done. Add the rest of the ingredients. Mix well and pour mixture into a round or square baking pan. Steam for 40 minutes.

My alteration :
1) After steaming , I deep fried the cake until golden brown.
2) The texture of my radish cake (see close up below)is different. As I have coated it with rice flour before deep frying it.

Chinese Laughing Dumplings (笑口棗)

Don't they look mouth-watering? Thanks Do what I like for sharing this wonderful recipe. Taste wise is as good as the ones I usually get during dim sum breakfast or sunday market..light, crunchy on the outside, soft inside with a hint of sweetness!

Only thing to be aware of is the temprature of the oil when frying the dumplings. Do ensure oil is not too hot or dumplings and sesame seeds would burnt rather quickly.
.

Chinese Laughing Dumplings (笑口棗) click here for recipe