Steamed Meat Bun

Recently I was craving for some good mantou (Almost Bourdain has a great recipe with step by step guide, alas, s/he blocked her blog so I can't see the recipe anymore!), a plain sweet Chinese bun with no filing. It's not the cha siu pao, so don't think of those yummy delicious gooey meat filled buns. Anyway, I made some and hubby wasn't too happy it wasn't filled. I ended up searching on YouTube for a decent recipe for buns (mantou and meat buns has slightly different taste, mantou is sweeter, meat bun dough saltier).

I found 2 videos I like, a  Taiwanese lady called TaiwanDuck and YazzMatz. I am happy with YazzMatz's YouTube recipe (coz it seems easier), except the dough turned out really gooey, sticky and really salty! So I adjusted the flour and salt measurement and am happy with the result. For the meat filing, I can't imagine how just plain ground turkey and chives makes anything yummy, so I made my own. It's not perfect, so I will add this later on when I perfected the recipe, catered to hubby's taste bud of course :)

The one I made, not bad for a first timer!

Dough recipe:

3 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
1 pkg of active dry yeast (equals to 2 1/4 tsp)
2 tbsp white sugar
1 tsp fine salt
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 1/4 cup of warm (to your touch) water

Instruction:
Preferably in a mixer, put all ingredients together and mix for about 10 mins (when your dough looks smooth). If you don't have a mixer, knead with hands (like washing laundry motion) for about 20-30 minutes.

Once done, coat the inside of a huge bowl with a teaspoon of vegetable oil. Put your kneaded dough into the bowl, place a warm wet towel over it and set aside at a warm place for about 30 mins to an hour or until it doubled in size (depending on how warm it is).

Prepare your meat filling while waiting for dough to rise.

Once done, check your dough. If it's doubled in size, take it out and roll it again. Make it into a round shape, punch a hole in the middle, break the "chain" and roll it into a long skinny log shape so that it's easier for you to use your palm to cup (effectively working as measurement tool) and twist off a portion of dough (at this point it should make a nice "plop" sound when you twist it off. I learn this from my mom, who used to make the bomb steam buns). Roll that portion into a dough, using roller pin roll it to a desired thickness and round shape. Put your meat filing in, pleat it and you got a nice bun!

Steam in a steamer for about 15-20 mins (meat filing is raw, so need to cook the meat as well). Serve it hot!

Peanut Butter Cookies

This is a recipe I got from Chef John. His original recipe is here (he has a video, so follow the video). You can try his ingredients or mine, I find his too salty for me to eat a lot of them cookies, and that makes me sad! So I changed the salt content and the peanut butter uhm... I don't know what to call it, version? consistency? You know, the crunchy or creamy type. It gives the cookies a chewier texture and I love 'my' version more coz I can eat like 5 at one go and don't need to chug down a lot of water to ease the saltiness.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature

1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1/4 cup crunchy peanut butter

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 egg

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (or 1/4 tsp fine table salt)

1/2 teaspoons baking soda

*Bake at 375 degrees F. for 10 minutes


Instructions:


In a mixer bowl, put in the butter, sugar, brown sugar, peanut butter, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Cream for about 1-2 mins until they are creamy looking. Throw in the egg, mix until combined and throw in the flour. Mix at slow speed so you don't get flour all over you and  then mix until well combined.


Using whatever method you like (Chef John use ice cream scoop, I use 1 tbsp measurement spoon), roll them into balls, place onto ungreased cookie pan, use the fork to make those tic tac toe game design, bake for about 10 mins (my oven bakes for about 8 mins or so). 


Take out, let cool for about 5mins, then transfer to cooling rack. Once it's cool enough to eat, you will like it. Trust me. ;)

Easy peasy. I love these cookies! Thank you Chef John!