Green Onion Pancakes 蔥油餅

From when I was small my grandma would occasionally make green onion pancakes, otherwise known as scallion pancakes 蔥油餅.  I really enjoyed eating the pancakes.
 
I was always interested in trying out this recipe and I got the chance when there was a potluck at my youth fellowship.  This is a post from a really long time ago, by the way.  I'm going to post about 11 items soon, but I'm getting this out of the way first.

My best friend was there when I made it and she really liked the end result.  I honestly don't remember too much about the tastes, but I think this recipe is worth making.  The only adjustment I would make is not use as much oil.

Green Onion Pancakes 蔥油餅 

Steamed Peach Buns 寿桃 II

Recently, I just started college!!  It's definitely a new, exciting experience to go through.  College is somewhere that people have to become more independent.  The teachers now don't remind you to do your homework and things like that.  They now expect you to do everything and if you don't do it, a bad result on a test is what you get.  So after starting school back in September 22, I was "busy" with other things like getting used to college, dorm life, and making friends.  School isn't that hard, at least not as hard as I expected.  I'm enjoying school life I guess.  I'm dorming and I have two other roommates.  We get along really well. :)  I'm have lots of fun with them; they always make me laugh.  Also, my hall activities are pretty fun too.  Since I'm in an all-girls hall, the only all-girls hall in my school, my whole hall is pretty close.  We even had a hair and nail polish night where we just had fun.  Oh!  I also got a new job, at the Student Center.  Yesterday was the first day I worked and it was pretty interesting.  I think I like my new job. :D  Anyway, that's basically what has been happening recently, just wanted to keep my readers updated.  Now....on to the recipe. This is the one that is a continuation from my red bean paste post.

On September 9, I decided to make steamed peach buns, aka 寿桃, again because it was going to be my boss' and grandma's birthday.  Last time I made them, I messed up because it was too cold, so I didn't let the buns rise for a sufficient amount of time.  However, this time they were successful!  Both recipes are for sure very reliable.  Feel free to try both of them out.

Steamed Peach Buns 寿桃 II
Recipe from Vivian Pang's Kitchen.
 
 

Steamed Buns 饅頭 (Mantou)

I wanted to share this the day I made it, which was some time this past week. I've made it several times since then and even tried the wheat version. I'll share those tips in a separate post. The post below is what I wrote a few days ago. If I don't post this post now, I don't know when I'll get around to posting it. So here it is! I'll continue adding pictures until there is the usual step-by-step pictures. I highly recommend this recipe!

I've always wanted to try making the mantou my dad made. It was always a treat whenever he made them. When he hasn't made them for a long time, I would request for them, dropping hints. :D One day I tried learning from him. Except, my family usually cooks without measuring. So I tried the best that I could to get the recipe and below is my sad attempt of remembering his recipe...

Well before that, I decided to try out Angie's recipe in the meantime because I was craving mantou. I feel like I would be able to eat mantou for breakfast, lunch and dinner, without getting sick of it. As I mentioned many times before, I love eating carbs! :D I really would eat that much mantou if it was healthy for you, but it isn't....too much processed flour. Ok, anyway, I found her recipe a long time ago, before I even started blogging. Back then, I did not know much about breads. If you asked me to make mantou last year, I would be confounded.

The bread turned out sooo soft! And it had skin! You can tell how excited I was. lol That type of mantou is my favorite. Now, next step is to make this wheat mantou, but still keep this nice texture. The only downfall was my baking soda not being mixed well enough....leading to these brown splotches. I also learned that adding sugar and yeast creates alcohol and mixing baking soda with this alcohol may cause brown spots. In my case it was brown swirls. Maybe next time I won't add sugar to my starter to see if the brown splotches still happen.

Chinese Steamed Buns with Starter
Adapted from Angie's Recipes



Uploaded with ImageShack.us Photobucket is maintaining their website now, so I'll just use imageshack for the time being.

Purple Yam Mochi

My aunt made some more mochi one day and brought some over to my house and shared a few with my family. There's a twist, instead of using red bean paste, she used mashed purple yam for the filling. Because making red bean paste is very time consuming, she tried out this new method recommended by her friend. I think this new flavor tastes really good. It doesn't have the "feel" of red bean mochi, but if you are in a bind and crave mochi with sweet fillings, go ahead and try this out. So here is the mochi she made, along with the simple recipe.

For the quick and easy mochi recipe with a video tutorial, click here. Continue reading for the yam filling's recipe.

Purple Yam Mochi

The second one is yam too, but the lighting was a bit off. This one was rolled in dessicated coconut instead of potato starch.


Red Bean Mochi

Red Bean Nian Gao Pancake 紅豆年糕餅

Whenever my mom makes red bean nian gao, she also makes a pancake sandwich with them. The pancake uses a very simple batter that takes a minute or two to prepare. Depending on your own preference, you can choose to make the pancake thick or thin. The pancake surrounds the rectangular slice of nian gao while it's being cooked, allowing the nian gao to slightly soften, resulting in a perfect balance of texture between the pancake and the nian gao.

Red Bean Nian Gao Pancake 紅豆年糕餅

Daikon Nian Gao 蘿蔔糕

It's a Chinese New Year tradition for my mom to make nian gao every year. She will always make 3 different flavors and give them out to relatives and friends. As a child I really liked the red bean nian gao, but I would never eat daikon nian gao or taro because I was really picky back then. Now, I like eating all three flavors. For the savory nian gao, it is best paired with a soy sauce with minced garlic.

Daikon Nian Gao 蘿蔔糕 is also better known as turnip cake or radish cake. They aren't made out of turnips, but daikons, so the name isn't as accurate. You can find these "cakes", fried, at dim sums. They have a solid texture. When pan fried, they have a nice, crispy outer layer and a warm, semi-soft inner layer.

Daikon Nian Gao 蘿蔔糕
Recipe from my mom

紅豆年糕 Red Bean Nian Gao

Here's the recipe as I promised, enjoy. I will be sharing several more in the coming days.

Red Bean Nian Gao 紅豆年糕
Recipe from my mom who learned how to make this from my grandma

Wheat Mantou 麥饅頭

I finally got my courage up a few weeks ago to make these wheat steamed buns. My dad always makes regular steamed buns and they are so good that I can eat 3 at a time and they're the size of my palm! I told you I like my carbs. :)

Wheat steamed buns are basically dough molded into pieces and steamed for around 20 minutes. They are also known as mantou,饅頭, and they have a nice "spongy" texture. Some steamed buns may be denser, while others are as fluffy as a cloud. There are a variety of these buns: sweet, savory, wheat, filled and possibly even more. My mom always go to the Chinese supermarket to get these soft wheat mantou and I've always wanted to try making it myself.

After making it, I'm pretty happy with the results. Next time, however, I will replace some of the whole wheat flour with all purpose flour because it had an overly strong wheaty/earthy flavor. The texture was not as soft and fluffy as the store bought mantou, but I'm sure that can be changed the next time I make it. I had to add a bit more whole wheat flour because my dough was a bit sticky.

Wheat Mantou 麥饅頭
Slightly Adapted from from Rasa Malaysia
Makes 12

Red Bean Mochi

On Thanksgiving, I learned how to make mochi with red bean filling. Actually, I learned how to make mochi a few years ago, but I really wanted to learn from my aunt because I love eating her mochi. Guess what, her mochi does not use any oil at all, other than that used for preparing the container.

Mochi with Red Bean Filling