Gua Bao

Thanks to New York chef Eddie Wong, author of “Fresh Off the Boat,” Gua-Bao has became a foodie favorite in the past few years. And with Chinese New Year fast approaching, this time of year is when these delicious steamed buns are most commonly served.


Bosses in Taiwan are known for being demanding and strict. But on the 16th day of the 12th month on the traditional Chinese lunar year, many bosses gather all of the employees and treat them to an extravagant banquet called a “wei-ya” (literally meaning “the end”) as a way to show gratitude for a year of hard work and dedication.

In the past, some particularly insensitive employers have supposedly used the event as an opportunity to ceremoniously can certain employees by turning the head of the cooked chicken toward the seat of an unfortunate worker who would soon be fired.

However, for the most part, it’s a time to establish rapport between the boss and employees over some delicious traditional Chinese dishes. No wei-ya is complete without a platter of Gua-Bao. Since Gua-Bao kind of resembles a wallet, it’s also said to represent a wallet filled with money to symbolize how much money you will earn next year.

 

When filled with braised pork, the Gua-Bao is also called hu yao zhu, literally meaning “tiger bites pig,” to symbolize the biting of all the bad things that happened in the past year.

Traditionally, a Gua-Bao is made with pork belly and stuffed with sour mustard preserves and sweet powdered sugar, which is not my favorite combination of a bao. So this week I’d like to share with you my own Gua-Bao recipe using five-spice chicken, pickled cucumbers and sweet sesame carrots. To make this even easier to prepare, we are going to be using the slow cooker. The best part about this recipe is that everything can be made ahead of time. This is absolutely one of my favorite things to make for parties and potlucks, and it’s always guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser.

You will need:

Ingredients: (Serves 4 people)

 

For the steamed buns:

4 cups all-purpose flour

1½ Tbsp. sugar

1 Tbsp. vegetable oil

2 tsp. instant yeast

1½ cup lukewarm water

For the five-spice chicken:

4 large chicken thighs

4 cloves garlic

3 scallions

1 inch ginger

1 onion

2 dried pepper

1½ Tbsp. soy sauce

¼ tsp. white pepper

1¼ tsp. sugar

½ tsp. Chinese five spice

salt and pepper to taste

¼ cup water

For the filling:

1 cup sliced cucumber

½ tsp. red pepper flakes

2 Tbsp. rice wine vinegar

½ tsp. sugar

2 carrots

1 tsp. sesame oil

1½ tsp. brown sugar

¼ tsp. sesame seeds

1 tsp. vegetable oil for frying

handful of cilantro

brown sauce and hot sauce to taste

Directions:

Start by roughly cutting up the garlic, ginger, scallions and onion and set aside.

 

Brown the chicken thighs with a little bit of vegetable oil in a large cast iron skillet for two minutes on each side.

Place the browned chicken thighs in the slow cooker with all of the five-spice chicken ingredients including the chopped garlic, ginger, scallions and onion. Cook on low heat for 5 hours.

To make the steamed buns, mix all of the ingredients together and kneed for five minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic. Cover it up and let it proof in a warm and draft-free place in your kitchen for about an hour until the dough has doubled in size.

After the dough has doubled in size, punch the air out of the dough and roll the dough out to about 1/8 inch thick. 

Cut circles with a cookie cutter or a mason jar lid.

  

Use a rolling pin to roll the circles from the middle out and do the same with the bottom to make sure your dough is rolled out evenly into an oval shape. Brush vegetable oil on the rolled-out dough and fold the dough in half with the greased side in.

 

Place the folded dough in the steamer and let it rest for 15 minutes; the dough will rise again for a little bit but not double in size. Then steam the buns on high heat for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and let your steamed buns sit in the steamer for 5 minutes with the lid slightly open. Press down the bun with your finger and if the bun springs back up, your bun is ready. These buns will keep in the refrigerator for two weeks and in the freezer up to three months; you can reheat them in a microwave and they will be just as soft and fluffy.

To make the pickled cucumbers, slice the cucumbers into thin slices and toss them in rice wine vinegar, hot pepper flakes and sugar while you’re waiting for the buns to be cooked.

Cut carrots into sticks and sauté them in oil, brown sugar and sesame seeds for a few minutes until the carrots are soft. Remove from heat and drizzle sesame oil over it.

Start assembling the buns by placing the chicken, carrots, cucumbers, the scallions and cilantro in the middle of the bun along with a spoon of brown sauce and hot sauce of your choice. 

I have a recipe for homemade brown sauce in the “Beef Stuffed Scallion Pancakes” column on the website, or you can get brown sauce at your local grocery store as well. 

Bring them to your next potluck or make them on a weeknight using the slow cooker for dinner. Happy Wei Yah and enjoy!

Xian Bing - Chinese Pan Fried Meat Pies

For the past few years Xiao Long Bao (aka Taiwanese soup dumplings) have become wildly popular. But another Taiwanese street food that you may not have tried are Xian Bing, also known as Chinese pan-fried meat pies. These meat pies have even more soup packed in the pastry and they only take half the effort to make as soup dumplings. In fact, they are so juicy, it’s almost hard not to make a big mess with the soup shooting out when you bite into the pie. My brother Chih-Wei is the only person I know who can skillfully eat this pie without spilling a single drop of soup onto the plate. If you like soup dumplings, you will love this yummy, juicy meat pie.

You will need:

Ingredients: (Serves 3-4 people)
For the pie:
3 cup all purpose flour
¼ tsp. granulated sugar
pinch of salt
½ cup boiling hot water
½ cup cold water
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil

For the filling:
1 lb. ground beef
4 cloves garlic
1 onion
4 scallions
1 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. granulated sugar
½ tsp. white pepper
4 tsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. cooking wine
3 Tbsp. sesame oil
6 Tbsp. cold water

3 Tbsp. vegetable oil for frying


Directions:
Mix up flour, sugar and water. Stir in hot water to the flour mixture with a pair of chopsticks or the back of a wooden spoon to give it a mealy consistency. What you are doing here is half-cooking the dough. This is a very common method for making bun and dumpling skins.

 
Now add in the cold water and vegetable oil. Kneed for two minutes until the dough is smooth. Cover it up with plastic wrap and let it rest while you make the filling.

To make the filling, start by mincing the garlic, onion, scallion and ginger. Set it aside.

In a large bowl, mix salt and sugar into the ground beef. Add cold water, one tablespoon at a time, while stirring the beef until the water gets absorbed into the beef. This is what’s going to make the filling turn into soup once it’s cooked.

Mix in the soy sauce, cooking wine, sesame oil and white pepper.

Gently mix in the minced garlic, onion, scallion and ginger. Don’t stir it too much or else the water and oil will start to separate.

Now roll the dough into a log and cut it into 10 to 12 pieces.

Roll the cut-out dough individually into 4-inch-diameter disks with a rolling pin, but leaving the center thicker than the edges. The best way to do this is to spin the dough counter-clockwise while rolling the rolling pin back and forth on the edges of the dough with your other hand.

Take about 2 tablespoons full of the filling and place it in the center of the rolled-out dough.

Gather the edges of the dough to seal the pie. Pinch off any extra dough.

Gently pat the pie down to a disk with the seam side facing down.

Heat up 3 tablespoons vegetable oil in a large non-stick skillet on medium-low heat. Place the pies in the pan, seam side down. Cook for 5 minutes or until the bottom is golden brown. Make sure you check the bottom of the pie to make sure it doesn’t burn.

Turn the pie over and cover the skillet. This will make sure the filling gets cooked. Cook for another 4 to 5 minutes until both sides are golden brown.

You want to let these pies cool for 5 minutes before serving, or else the soup inside will be burning hot when you bite into them. Crispy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside is the key. As you can see, a lot of soup spills out when you bite into the pie!

Serve these pies with some soy sauce and vinegar and a little hot sauce. Enjoy while it’s warm.

Nasi Briyani

After spending so much time cooking and baking over the holidays, the last thing I wanted to do this past week was to cook or eat another big meal. Therefore this week I’d like to share with you a very simple one-pot rice dish that can cook in under 30 minutes — my Singapore/Malaysian fusion Nasi Biryani. Many of the spices happen to be ingredients we often use in holiday baking, so it’s also a good way to use up some of those leftover spices.

Biryani is a rice dish with a lot of spices, vegetables and often meat. The word “biryani” originates from “birinj,” the Persian word for rice. There are many, many different versions of biryani across the world, from South East Asia to Africa. The version that we’ve been enjoying at our house is the Singapore/Malaysian nasi biryani. It is believed that biryani was introduced to Malaysia by Indian Muslims as well as the Arab diaspora. This is a healthy and very simple dish you can make as a post-holiday meal. Or if you have anymore energy left to cook for a New Year’s Eve party, this is a great last-minute party food to put together. I’ve actually brought this dish to several parties and potlucks during the holidays and it has always been a crowd pleaser.
You will need:

Ingredients: (Serves 4 people)

1 cup basmati rice
1⅓ cup water
½ cup coconut milk
1 onion
1 carrot
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp. minced ginger
½ tsp. turmeric powder
¼ tsp. coriander seeds
1 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
3 cloves
2 cardamom pods
1½ tsp. coarse salt
¼ tsp. pandan leaf extract
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

For the toppings:
¼ cup raisins
¼ cup toasted cashew nuts
1 small fried shallot

Directions:
Start by soaking the rice in 1⅓ cup of water and let it sit for 15 minutes.

Slice onion and carrot into thin strips.

In a deep pot, cook the onions and carrots along with 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil on medium low heat until the carrots are soft and onions are translucent. This will take about three to four minutes. Once the onions and carrots are cooked, turn the heat up to high and toss in the cinnamon stick, cloves, cardamom pods, coriander seeds and star anise, along with the remaining 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil. Cook for one minute or until you can smell the fragrance from all of the spices. If you don’t have whole spices, you can substitute each with ⅛ tsp. ground spice.

Stir in the coconut milk and the soaked rice, along with all of the soaking water and turmeric powder. Cook until it comes to a simmer. Stir in the pandan leaf extract and cover the pot. Turn the heat down to low and let it cook for 10 to 15 minutes. If you can find fresh pandan leaves, you can just tie two leaves into a knot and place it in the pot instead. For those who are not familiar with pandan leaf, it is a tropical plant that is used widely in Southeast Asian cooking. It’s got a very unique, almost creamy and sweet flavor. You can find the extract in Southeast Asian grocery stores or online. However, if you want to skip this step, that’s fine too. I have made this dish without the pandan in the past and it still tastes very delicious with all the spices and coconut milk. But the pandan leaf is what will give it the unique Malaysian taste.

While you are waiting for the rice to be cooked, you can prep the toppings. Lightly toast the cashew nuts in the toaster oven or on the stovetop until it’s brown. To fry the shallots, slice them into thin rings. Fry the shallot on medium high heat with 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil until it’s brown and crispy (about 1-2 minutes).

Once the rice is cooked, toss in the raisins and fluff the rice very gently. Cover the rice up again and let it sit for 5 minutes to allow the raisins to infuse with the rice. After that, sprinkle the fried shallots and cashew nuts on top of the rice and serve.

If you wish to make a big quantity for a party, you can quadruple the recipe, but I would recommend to only double the spices.

Nasi Biryani is great on its own as a meal, or you can serve it with some chicken satay or lamb kebad and enjoy!

Check out a similar dish, “Xinjiang Lamb Rice,”
http://thewayriceshouldbe.blogspot.com/2015/11/xinjiang-lamb-rice.html