Christine's Recipes Printable Version: Steamed

Showing posts with label Steamed. Show all posts

Water Chestnut Cake (Chinese New Year Recipe)

The chilled water chestnut cake will turn a bit harder and opaque. When it’s reheated, it turns to soft and translucent again.
The cornflour can help produce better and firmer texture to hold it shape nicely.
If you like the cake darker in colour, you can replace the white sugar with brown sugar slab. Or if you like your cake looks in a white colour, use all white sugar then.

Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 30 mins
Yield: one square pan 15.4cm x 5cm (depth)

Ingredients:

600 ml water
100 gm water chestnut flour (Pan Tang Guangzhou 廣州泮塘特產)
2 tsp / about 6 gm cornflour / corn starch
2 tsp oil
50 gm white sugar
50 gm brown sugar slab (冰片糖), finely chopped
8 water chestnuts, fresh, frozen or canned, roughly chopped

Method:

Grease the pan with a little of oil in order to help remove the cake from it at ease.
Dissolve the water chestnut flour with 300 ml of water and cornflour completely. Drain through a fine sieve. Stir in 2 teaspoons of oil. Set aside.
Put the other 300 ml of water, together with white sugar, chopped brown sugar into a deep pot. Cook until the sugar dissolves completely. Bring it to boil. Add the water chestnuts. Reduce the heat to low. Stir in the dissolved water chestnut flour mixture. Immediately stir to combine well into a thick but smooth batter. Make sure not to let the batter stick to the bottom.
Pour the batter into the greased pan. Use a teaspoon, wet with some water, to level the surface. Cover with foil and steam in a wok or steamer, for about 30 to 35 minutes, or until the cake turns translucent, or an inserted needle comes out clean. Remove from the wok and let cool a bit. Remove the cake from pan and slice into pieces. Serve warm immediately. Or pan fry slices before serving. The leftover can be kept in fridge, covered, for up to a week or so.

Steamed Vegetable Dumplings (五彩蔬菜蒸餃)

You might’ve noticed that my family and I are not vegan eaters. But I do love having many different vegetables served on table, sometimes enjoy a no-meat day. These dumplings have got several vegetables in five different colours for fillings, and can be a perfect light lunch, or snacks for tea time.

Steamed Vegetable Dumplings (Printable recipe)
By Christine's Recipes
Prep time: 40 mins
Cook time: 20 mins
Yield: 2 to 3 serves

Pastry Ingredients:

300 gm plain flour
150 ml hot water, 80C/175F
60 ml water, at room temperature

Filling ingredients:

1 to 2 shiitake mushrooms
45 gm corn kernels
25 gm carrot, diced
50 gm chinese chives, finely chopped
34 gm vermicelli/cellophane noodles, soaked, softened and sectioned
3 water chestnuts, about 56 gm, skinned and diced
45 gm spicy tofu (picture shown above), diced
1/2 tsp minced ginger

Seasonings:

1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp chicken bouillon powder
2 Tbsp water
sesame oil, to taste

Method:

Sift flour into a large mixing bowl. Drizzle the hot water evenly into the flour in a circular motion. Use a spatula or chopsticks to quickly mix well, to create little flour crumbs.
Add room-temperature water in three batches and knead into a smooth dough. Place in a greased bowl, covered with a plastic film. Let it rest for 30 minutes.
To make the fillings: Heat oil in a wok or frying pan. Saute ginger over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms, carrot, dried tofu, corn kernels and chives. Stir fry until aromatic. Add vermicelli and water chestnuts. Stir in the seasonings. Set aside. Let cool down.
Roll out the dough into a long tube shape. Cut into 14 to 16 equal portions. Roll each portion into a small disc with a rolling pin, each about 8cm in size. Wrap a heaped tablespoon of filling and pinch the edge. Repeat this step with the remaining pastry and fillings.
Steam the dumplings in a wok or a steamer over high heat, for about 15 minutes, or until cooked through. Serve immediately.

Notes:

The chicken bouillon powder can be replaced with shiitake mushroom powder for vegan eaters, which is available at Asian stores.
The leftover dumplings can be kept in a covered container in fridge up for 3 to 4 days. Frozen can be kept for a month.
Spicy tofu is also available at Asian stores, often placed in chilling section.
The texture of the dumpling skin is made from hot water and flour, produced a soft and springy feel. You might like to refer this video of how to wrap a dumpling. The pastry is very stretchy and tender, thus wrapping the diced fillings inside is quite a challenge for a beginner. It’s nothing wrong if seal tightly without pinching the edge at all. You'll make some beautiful rustic dumplings. Just make sure no fillings would leak out.

Steamed Golden Fish Cakes with Oyster Sauce + Hong Kong Trip Snapshot

Steamed Golden Fish Cakes with Oyster Sauce01

Lee Kum Kee held a cooking competition for bloggers in April. To my knowledge, it’s the first one ever run in Hong Kong before. I felt honoured to be invited and created a demo recipe for their official site. Healthy, creative and fusion were the requirements and themes for every entry. So here you go, I translated my demo recipe into English to share the joy of participating something significant in food blogging.

What else could be more healthier than a steamed fish dish? Believed that this dish had nailed the competition themes, off I went to submit my recipe and posted on my chinese food blog. By adding a bit of vietnamese condiment, fish sauce, into the fish paste, I planned to bring in a kind of cross-over-taste in Chinese traditional seasoning. Besides all the cooking, I was able to know and connect more Hong Kong food bloggers through this event, as well as expand my blogging horizon a bit.

As a side note, I was invited to visit the LKK headquarter during my trip back to Hong Kong last month.

Amazed by their warm welcome message！

Very impressed by their giant, modern kitchen. I could imagine how excited the contestants would have felt while cooking their invention dishes in this splendid kitchen.

A peek view of LKK giant kitchen - taken by my ipad2

Prepare 8 chinese tablespoons or cook in batches.
Steamed Golden Fish Cakes with Oyster Sauce (Printable recipe)

By Christine's Recipes
Prep time: 20 mins
Cook time: 15 mins
Yield: Makes 8 golden fish cakes

Ingredients:

200 gm white fish meat (e.g. mackerel)
1 shiitake mushroom, soaked until soft, finely diced
8 thin strips of carrot
8 leaves of baby bok choy

Marinade:

1 tsp fish sauce
1/2 tsp sugar
pepper, to taste
1 Tbsp freshly grated carrot juice

Sauce:

3 tsp Lee Kum Kee premium oyster sauce
1 tsp Lee Kum Kee light soy sauce
1/4 tsp Lee Kum Kee dark soy sauce
Lee Kum Kee sesame oil, to taste
2½ Tbsp water

Thickening:

1 Tbsp water
1/2 tsp corn flour

Method:

Place the fish in a food processor and process until smooth. Transfer to a large bowl. Mix in marinade. Use chopsticks and blend towards only one direction, either clockwise or anti-clockwise, for about 10 minutes. (Note: Beating fish meat towards only one direction will help you produce elastic fish meat.)
Damp 8 chinese tablespoon (as picture shown above) with a bit of water. Divide fish paste into the tablespoons and make 8 oval shapes. On each fish paste portion, carefully place two diced mushrooms as fish eyes, one tiny strip of carrot as fish mouth. Steam in a wok over high heat, about 5 minutes, or until cooked through. Run a sharp knife around each tablespoon and remove the fish cakes. Arrange on a large serving plate.
While steaming the fish cakes, use a small saucepan, cook the sauce over medium heat. When it boils, add the thickening and cook to preferred consistency. Set aside.
Add a dash of oil in boiling water in the wok, briefly cook the baby bok choy until soft and turns green. Don’t overcook them. Drain them, and cut away the stalks. Place each leaf next to each fish cake as its tail. Serve hot with the sauce.

Notes:

Carrot is a healthy ingredient. Utilize its natural golden orange colour to replicate the look and colour of a golden fish in order to enhance the appetite.
When it comes to making this fish cake, only use fish meat, without any fish skin, as you don’t want the fish cakes get some black spot inside.
It’s much more easier to get the colour you like if you add carrot juice bit by bit, and stir at the same time.
When shaping the fish cake, you might find the fish paste a bit sticky or messy. No worries. To make it workable, damp your hands with a bit of water, you'll find shaping a fish cake is a piece of cake.
Cook the bok choy with stalks intacted, it helps to drain out easily without tearing off the delicate leaves. The stalks can be eaten with sauce anyway, you won’t waste anything.
When serving this dish, the sauce can be transferred into a small sauce pot.
The intensity of saltiness of different brands of fish sauce is different. Adjust the amount of it accordingly.

Steamed Pork Buns (菜肉包)

This recipe of steamed buns comes late, a bit behind my original schedule. These pork buns were cooked last week and posted on my Chinese food blog a few days ago.

Over the past few days, south-east Queensland has experienced a very devastating flood, so called “inland tsunami”, similar to 1974 tragedy. The family was spared as we are not in the flood zone. Sadly, countless suburbs, the CBD of Brisbane and Ipswich are inundated, awaiting for clean up once the flood waters are clear. My mind was totally occupied by all those images and news about the flood through the media. It’s so sad to see many people lost their houses, their business, their property and even their loved ones. I’ve ever seen such a horrible flash flood since I moved to Australia. Hope I won’t see any again. My thoughts and hearts are out to all those affected in this traumatic flood.

The flood came so quickly, much quicker than anyone expected. So, be thankful and enjoy what you have right now. Even if it’s something as simple as eating a few buns, it's a bliss by itself. Speaking about the buns, they can be kept in freezer for up to two to three weeks once they are steamed and cooled down. I usually take one or two out form the freezer, needless to defrost, and quickly bring their softness and freshness back by steaming in a wok/steamer for breakfasts.

Steamed Pork Buns (菜肉包) (Printable recipe)

Prepare 10 6cmx6cm baking paper/wax paper

Ingredients:

200 gm plain flour
2 tsp caster sugar
1 tsp vegetable oil
½ tsp instant dry yeast
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup, warm milk (should be under 40C)
a pinch salt

Fillings:

130 gm Taiwanese cabbage (or other vegetables you like), shredded
170 gm pork mince

Seasonings:

1 Tbsp light soy sauce
½ tsp freshly grated ginger
½ tsp sugar
½ tsp chicken powder
½ tsp salt
3 Tbsp water
pepper, to taste

Method:

Mix pork with seasonings well. Chill in fridge for about 15 to 20 minutes. Combine pork with cabbage. Set aside.
Use a measure cup or a bowl, pour in milk. Add ½ teaspoon of sugar and yeast. Rest for about 5 to 10, until bubbles arise.
Combine flour, 1½ teaspoon of sugar, water, oil and yeast mixture, knead into a smooth dough.
Place the dough in a bowl, covered with a cling film. Let rest for 15 to 20 minutes.
Transfer the dough onto a clean surface. Cut into 10 equal portions. Shape each in round balls, then roll into a disc with a rolling pin, with edges thinner than the middle. Wrap a spoonful filling inside, pinch seam tightly. Place on a piece of baking paper. Repeat this step with the rest of the dough. Transfer to a steamer/wok, covered, let rest for about 15 to 20 minutes.
Add cold water into steamer/wok. Steam buns over medium-high heat. When steam is vigorously releasing, continue to steam for 12 minutes. Turn off the heat, let rest for 10 to 15 minutes. Serve hot.

Notes:

You can substitute with other vegetables, like baby bok choy, chive, or any vegetables you like.
The buns you steamed might look a bit yellowish if you use ordinary flour. Except you use the bleached flour, then your buns would look as white as those bought from shops. But I used the ordinary, unbleached flour, and made it whiter by adding some milk in the process of making the dough. So the buns shown in this post were quite white. If you use only milk without any water to make buns, they’d look even whiter. As I don’t want these Chinese buns taste heavy milk flavour, I just incorporated water to milk, with a ratio of 1:1. You can adjust the ratio according to your preference. You can skip the milk if you don’t like, of course. Just replace it with the same amount of water. That’s easy.
Please refer to this post on how to wrap Chinese buns with video shown.

Steamed Whole Fish (with Cleaning Tip)

Over the past few days, I got a cold and soar throat. It’s not very serious, only with a bit of dizziness while standing or walking because of a minor infection in my left inner ear. My appetite was affected, still loved to do cooking in my kitchen. Needless to say, the easiest and simplest dishes were my first choice.

Suddenly realized that I haven’t steamed live fish for a while. In Brisbane, we don’t have many choices though. Silver perch is quite easily found in a nearby Asian grocery store. Quickly, I decided to have a steamed fish dish to sooth my soar throat. This is a traditional Chinese way of steaming a whole fish, simple and easy, and that provides with enough proteins for my family. The staff nearly did all the cleaning job for me. So I didn’t need to spend a long time in the kitchen for preparation and cooking.

If you have tried live silver perch, you might notice there’s something like slippery gel on the fish skin. Many people don’t bother it at all, but I’m not quite into it as I feel the slippery stuff quite nasty. Water can’t wash it away easily. Gladly, there’s a very simple trick to get rid of the slippery, nasty thing away.

Steamed Whole Fish - Silver Perch (Printable recipe)

Ingredients:

1 live silver perch, about 405 gm
a pinch salt
a pinch pepper
2 tbsp ginger, shredded
a handful spring onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp hot oil, for dressing
a dash light soy sauce, for dressing

Method:

Clean and remove all the guts inside the fish. You must have noticed most live fish that live in lakes or pounds, including silver perch, have slippery gel on their skins. It’s quite hard to wash it away with water. Here’s a simple trick: Rub salt on the both sides of the fish, then rinse with running water. Repeat this step if necessary. The slippery gel would be much easier to be removed. Wash and wipe inside and out with paper towels to dry well. Trim the fins if desired. Season salt and pepper on both sides.
Place the fish on a big plate. Season with salt and pepper on the both sides and inside, topped with shredded ginger and half of the chopped spring onion.
Heat water in a wok/steamer until you see steam releasing. Place the fish in wok and steam the fish over high heat for about 15 minutes, or until cooked through. Test with a chopstick inserted into the thickest part, the flesh near the top fin. If the chopstick easily gets through, the fish is cooked. Otherwise, add more cooking time, about 1 to 2 minutes. (Note: The cooking time depends on the thickness of your fish. Make sure there’s enough water for steaming. Or replenish water if necessary.)
When the fish is done, carefully lift the plate up and discard all/part of the fish sauce in the plate. Turn off the heat. Then put back in the wok, sprinkle the rest of spring onion, cover. In the meantime, heat up about 2 tablespoons of cooking oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. When smoke arises, pour the hot oil over the fish. Drizzle with soy sauce, or served with any dipping sauce you like.

Other recipes of steaming fish:

Chinese Steamed Fish Recipe – Steamy Kitchen (with detailed tips and guide)
How to Steam Fish Filllet (uneven thickness) and whole fish - Teczcape

Steamed Cake (Old Style Dim Sum)

I often went to some old-styled Chinese restaurants with my father. There was a simple steamed cake served as dim sum, with delicate, light and soft texture. The fragrance of the eggs inside was wonderful. The ingredients of the cake are only eggs, flour and sugar. How could the chefs make this cake so soft and light? On the menu, the restaurants used to put 西施（Xishi in Mandarin）before the words of “steamed cake”. Xishi was one of the four renowned beautiful ladies in ancient China. Her beauty was described extremely in an imagery way that while she leaned over a balcony to look at the fish in the pond, the fish would be so dazzled that they forgot to swim and gradually sunk away from the surface. If you’re interested in knowing more about Xishi, here’s her story on Wikipedia.

So people used the name of Xishi to describe the delicate beauty of this steamed cake offered at some old-styled Chinese restaurants to attract their customers. If you have tried this old-styled dim sum, you might have been amazed by its simplicity and delicious taste.

Steamed Cake (Printable recipe)

Prepare a 10inch-sized bamboo steamer (or an 8inch greased tin)

Ingredients:

5 eggs
150 gm caster sugar
150 gm cake flour
Few drops vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt

Method:

Place a large deep mixing bowl on a sauce pan with simmering water and don’t let the bottom of the bowl touch the water. The temperature should be just warm because you don’t want to cook the eggs at this stage. Break one egg at a time. Add into the bowl together with small amount of sugar. Use an electric mixer to beat until completely combined before adding another egg with sugar. Continue to beat the eggs and sugar over high speed for about 5 minutes until the volume of the mixture increases, becomes soft and bubbling. Test by lifting up the mixer, if the egg mixture drops after 3 seconds, it’s done successfully.
Add a few drops of vanilla extract. Combine salt with flour. Sift in flour into the egg mixture little by little, fold in gently.
Line baking paper in the bamboo steamer. Pour the batter into the steamer. Place in a wok (or a steamer), covered, and steam over high heat for 30 minutes. Test by an inserted bamboo stick or needle that comes out clean. Serve hot.

Notes:

When it comes to cooking this steamed cake, all you need are eggs, flour and sugar. No baking powder or baking soda needed. Why is the cake so fluffy and soft? The secret is simple. Just beat the eggs with sugar enough to increase its volume by incorporating as much as air into the mixture.
You have to add an egg at a time, then beat with a small amount of sugar. Once all of the eggs and sugar are well combined, continue to beat until you lift up the mixer, the mixture will only drop after 3 seconds.
This steamed cake is best served hot. You can reheat it in a wok before serving, if it cools down.
Adding a pinch of salt is to elevate the taste of the cake.

Steamed Rice Cup Cake with Red Beans

Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 20 mins
Yield: 24 mini rice cupcakes or 8 bowls (each 100 ml capacity)
Ingredients:

85 gm rice flour
55 gm wheat starch
110 gm brown sugar
2 cups water
Red bean paste (home-cooked or canned) to taste

Method:

Add rice flour and wheat starch into 1/2 cup of water and stir well.
Use 1 1/2 cups of water to dissolve sugar over medium heat. Bring to a boil. Quickly pour into the flour mixture. Continuously stirring while pouring. Stir and combine thoroughly.
Transfer mixture into a mini muffin tray (or any mould you like) to steam over high heat, about 10 minutes, in batches. In the middle of steaming, you can add some sweetened red beans on the surface of rice pudding and continue to steam until cooked through.

Note:

Traditionally, this dessert is cooked in little bowls. If you use bowls, then cooking time will be around 20 minutes. The non-stick muffin tray I used, which is a good heat conductor, the steaming time was shorter.
Remember to grease the bowls before adding flour mixture into them.

Red Bean Pudding Recipe

Red beans are very nutritious food. They are low in fat and calories while high in protein, fiber, and minerals. Not only do I like their nutrition, but also their tender texture. They are good ingredients for dessert, especially for Chinese steamed ones. You might find this red bean pudding in some vintage Chinese restaurants or vegetarian restaurants. The red beans inside their puddings might be less than you want though. So, do-it-yourself at home would be the best way of tasting perfect red bean pudding because you could tailor-make the pudding with the exact amount of red beans you like.

There are various types of red beans. Keep in mind that the Azuki beans are commonly used in Chinese dessert, not the (Red type) ricebeans which are the correct ones for traditional Chinese medicine.

Ingredients:

1 cup red beans (about 227 gm)
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup rice flour
1/4 cup wheat flour
1/4 cup corn flour
1/4 cup vegetable oil
4 cups water

Method:

Bring 3 cups of water into a boil. Add red beans, covered. Lower heat to medium-low and cook until red beans soften. Check the water level and replenish, if necessary, with boiling water. There should not be too much water left when the red beans are cooked and become tender (see picture shown).
While cooking red beans, combine rice flour, wheat flour, corn flour, sugar and oil with 1 cup of water. Pour into the cooked red beans.
Cook the mixture over medium heat. Stir constantly.
Transfer mixture into a greased tray, 8-inch round. Steam over high heat with lid on for 1 hour. Test with a chopstick or toothpick. If it comes out clean, the red bean cake is cooked through. Cool completely. Cover and chill for at least 3 hours, or until set Cut into pieces to serve.

Note:

Use thick-based saucepan or non-stick pot to cook the batter. Otherwise the batter would stick to the bottom of your saucepan.

Ginger Crème Brulee (Quick Variation)

Ever tried to make Crème Brulee at home without using an oven?

I love this French dessert, with rich custard base and topped with a layer of crunchy caramelized sugar. This well-known French dessert, Crème Brulee is widely accepted. Yet not all restaurants offer such a supreme dessert in Australia, only offered by some prestige ones. So I tried to make some for my family some time ago. Although it’s not difficult to cook this dessert, I found it took nearly an hour to bake them. Here I found an easier way to make delicious crème brulee, saving much electricity, energy and cooking time with very good results. Sounds great?

Makes 2 serves

Ingredients:

2 egg yolks

100 ml thickened cream, room temperature

50 ml milk, room temperature

1 Tbsp white sugar

2 Tbsp freshly grated ginger juice

raw sugar, to taste

Method:

Lightly whisk egg yolks. Add in white sugar, thickened cream, milk and ginger juice, mix well. As you don’t want to have any foams appeared on the surface, so just combine the ingredients, not to beat them.

Sift egg mixture into ramekins in order to have smooth custard. Cover ramekins with foil (see picture shown above). Use a wok or steamer, steam for 10 to 15 minutes over medium-high heat with a lid. Insert a toothpick in the middle of custard to test if they are cooked through or not. If the toothpick comes out clean, they are done. Let custard cool and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours to set up.

Generously sprinkle raw sugar on the surface of custard. Torch it. Let the creme brulee cool for just a minute. Enjoy!

Notes:

You can use a teaspoon of vanilla instead of ginger juice if you like. Well, this is a traditional way of making crème brulee, I know. However, I love the taste of ginger, just going so well with the custard. Yummy!

If you liked this recipe, you might like the following one as well:

Steamed Eggs With Milk Dessert Recipe