One of the super rare occasion where you see me blogging in the wee hours of the night, at 3am now !! Gosh, even I am surprised at myself. At times like such when I couldn’t sleep, I would usually laze till dawn, refusing to do anything. But I wanted to get myself motivated to be more productive in my time now so that when I get embarked on my new job in a week plus time, I will give myself no excuses to be lazy.
I have to say, I really love how soft and fluffy the texture of this Da Pau is. Even when it’s being refrigerated and re-heated the following day, it was still good. But as it was a virgin attempt at Pau making, please do pardon the ugly pleating and such. And I kind of underestimate the extent in which it will “grow” during steaming such that all the Paus kind of stick to each other thereafter. Hence, you see some of the “skin” get peeled off. Nevertheless, it was a good attempt with very soft pau skin and delicious savoury fillings.
As compared to those factory productions or frozen types, this is like a hundred times much better in every way. After all, it is so much less saltier and you can choose to use less fatty meat as the fillings.
For someone who’s especially noob at pau making, I must say this is quite an easy recipe to follow and yields pretty good results. And with the soft pau skin recipe, you can easily rejuvenate them into other forms of pau, such as red bean, custard fillings, etc.
I think this has to be the first time too that I am actually blogging at 3am on a weekday when I still gotta work later. LOL. Not sure how I am going to survive the day either, but I will make it !! And penning food posts at such wee hours give me the hungry pangs especially now that I need to salivate on all the tempting food pictures. Haha !!
Ok, I shall gear up, complete this post and try and grab some nap before the day begins again. Till then, enjoy pau-ing ya !!
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- 500g pau flour, sifted
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tbsp instant yeast
- 100g castor sugar
- 240ml water
- 3½ tbsp shortening
- 1 tbsp double-action baking powder
- 200g boneless chicken leg, diced
- 400g pork collar, diced
- 6 pcs mushrooms, soaked and diced
- 200g yam bean (bang kuang), diced
- 4 pcs hard boiled eggs (cut into quarters)
- 2 tbsp cooking oil
- 1 tbsp minced ginger
- 2½ tbsp oyster sayce
- 1½ tbsp light soya sauce
- 1 tsp chicken powder
- 1 tbsp shaoxing wine
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 1 tsp sugar
- 2 tsp corn flour
- ¼ tsp pepper
Mix the pork, chicken and mushrooms with the marinade and season for at least 1 hour.
Heat up the oil and saute ginger until fragrant. Add the marinated meats and mushrooms and stir fried till fragrant.
Add the yam bean, stir well and cook for 5 minutes until they turn soft. Taste and dish up. Leave to cool and chill in the fridge for 3 hours. Divide into 12 portions.
Combine all the ingredients for the skin and knead into a smooth and elastic dough as seen. Cover with a piece of wet cloth and leave to prove until it has doubled its size.
Sift the double action baking powder on top of the dough and knead well to distribute the baking powder until the dough is smooth again. Cover and allow the dough to rest for another 15 minutes before shaping.
Divide dough into approximately 12 portions and shape into balls. Flatten, roll into big rounds and wrap with 1 portion of the filling and ¼ of an egg.
Put aside to prove for another 15 minutes and steam with high heat for 15 minutes until cooked.
Serve hot.
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