Chinese Egg Tarts

As part of Foodbuzz's Tastmaker's program, I recently received a package of Pepperidge Farm's frozen puff pastry. I have been meaning to try to make Chinese egg tarts (Dan Ta) for some time now, but was hesitant about all the messy steps involved with rolling out the shortening (or lard or butter) with flour. This seemed like a perfect experiment - can I use commercial puff pastry to make Chinese egg tarts?

The first thing to do is you have to defrost the frozen pastry. Let it sit out, preferably covered with a plastic wrap, for 30-40 minutes at room temperature.

Next, preheat the oven to 400 degrees as you prepare the custard and the shells.

The Custard
Ingredients
1 cup milk (heated)
2/3 cup sugar
4 eggs (lightly beaten)
optional: yellow food coloring

Lightly beat the 4 eggs until yolks and whites are mixed, trying not to incorporate air into the egg mixture.  Set aside. Heat milk and sugar over medium heat in a saucepan until hot but not boiling. Stir until the sugar is mostly dissolved.  Remove the saucepan from heat.

Add the egg mixture in a slow stream to the heated milk while stirring.  Continue to stir gently as the egg mixture is being added to ensure proper mixing and to prevent clumps of solid egg bits from forming. Once added, strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve and let it cool as you prepare the shells.

Note: you can optionally add yellow food coloring if you want the egg tarts to look like the ones you get at dim sum places.  I added a few drops, but this is totally optional.  Without the food coloring the egg part is a pale yellow color.

The Shell
Cut out circles with a 3-inch diameter cookie cutter (or just manually cut with a knife, tracing around a bowl).

Press the pastry circle into a normal sized muffin tin, stretching it a bit so that it forms a small cup.

Bake at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes or so.

Cut a small hole in the middle of the pastry (for the filling!)

Fill with the egg custard mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until the middle seems set. That's it!

Serve!

These are pretty tasty. The crust does not taste exactly like a traditional lard-made Chinese crust, although it is flaky and buttery in a similar way.  This crust is a bit puffier (to be expected) and the crust-to-egg ratio is a bit heavy on the crust.  I was sort of wishing for more egg mixture - maybe I should try to make them taller?

Over all, the puff pastry shell works OK and is a decent substitute. Definitely a workable way to make these if you are in a hurry.  It might be interesting to try this same egg custard mixture in different sorts of pre-made pastry shells to see which works best. :)

Enjoy!

Chinese Egg Tarts

As part of Foodbuzz's Tastmaker's program, I recently received a package of Pepperidge Farm's frozen puff pastry. I have been meaning to try to make Chinese egg tarts (Dan Ta) for some time now, but was hesitant about all the messy steps involved with rolling out the shortening (or lard or butter) with flour. This seemed like a perfect experiment - can I use commercial puff pastry to make Chinese egg tarts?

The first thing to do is you have to defrost the frozen pastry. Let it sit out, preferably covered with a plastic wrap, for 30-40 minutes at room temperature.

Next, preheat the oven to 400 degrees as you prepare the custard and the shells.

The Custard
Ingredients
1 cup milk (heated)
2/3 cup sugar
4 eggs (lightly beaten)
optional: yellow food coloring

Lightly beat the 4 eggs until yolks and whites are mixed, trying not to incorporate air into the egg mixture.  Set aside. Heat milk and sugar over medium heat in a saucepan until hot but not boiling. Stir until the sugar is mostly dissolved.  Remove the saucepan from heat.

Add the egg mixture in a slow stream to the heated milk while stirring.  Continue to stir gently as the egg mixture is being added to ensure proper mixing and to prevent clumps of solid egg bits from forming. Once added, strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve and let it cool as you prepare the shells.

Note: you can optionally add yellow food coloring if you want the egg tarts to look like the ones you get at dim sum places.  I added a few drops, but this is totally optional.  Without the food coloring the egg part is a pale yellow color.

The Shell
Cut out circles with a 3-inch diameter cookie cutter (or just manually cut with a knife, tracing around a bowl).

Press the pastry circle into a normal sized muffin tin, stretching it a bit so that it forms a small cup.

Bake at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes or so.

Cut a small hole in the middle of the pastry (for the filling!)

Fill with the egg custard mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until the middle seems set. That's it!

Serve!

These are pretty tasty. The crust does not taste exactly like a traditional lard-made Chinese crust, although it is flaky and buttery in a similar way.  This crust is a bit puffier (to be expected) and the crust-to-egg ratio is a bit heavy on the crust.  I was sort of wishing for more egg mixture - maybe I should try to make them taller?

Over all, the puff pastry shell works OK and is a decent substitute. Definitely a workable way to make these if you are in a hurry.  It might be interesting to try this same egg custard mixture in different sorts of pre-made pastry shells to see which works best. :)

Enjoy!

Hello Kitty Rice Crispy Treats

After successfully tackling Totoro Rice Crispy treats, I decided to make these cute Hello Kitty treats for my little cousins this Christmas.  Here's the detailed tutorial on how to make them.  Thanks to my mother-in-law for snapping some pictures of me while I was making these!

Ingredients
Rice Crispy Treat:
6 cups Toasted Rice Cereal (e.g. Rice Krispies Cereal)
4 T butter
1 package 10.5 oz mini marshmallows
Decorations:
M&M's (ideally red & pink ones)
mini-dark chocolate chips
Note: Hello Kitty's nose is actually yellow.  If you have access to mini yellow candies of some sort, you can try those.  The normal yellow M&Ms were too big, and this supermarket had no yellow alternative, so I stuck with the mini chocolate chips.

Make rice crispy treats according to the instructions on the package.  In this case, I melted 4 T butter with one 10.5 oz package of mini marshmallows.  Once melted, add 6 cups of rice crispies cereal and stir until combined.

Once it's combined, work quickly!!!  Wet your hands slightly and start shaping the rice crispy mixture into oblong spheres with ears.  If you work too slowly, the mixture will cool down and harden, thus become difficult to mold.

Instead of shaping the ears, you can also make the egg-like balls first and then attach little ears after the fact.

I also made some Totoros, which are essentially cones with 2 ears on top.

A finished Totoro pre-chocolate dunking.

Once you have shaped the Hello Kitties, add the mini-chocolate chips by ramming them point-first into the "face."  Likewise, press two M&M's into one side of her head below her ear.  I actually think I put the bow on the wrong side, but it doesn't really matter!

Again, this step is easier to do when the mixture is still sort of warm.

For the Totoros, you can optionally dunk them in chocolate (see this post for details).  Unlike last time, I did not mix the melted chocolate with oil at all.  Instead, I just melted the chocolate chips in the microwave (45 seconds - stir - then another 45 seconds), and dunked the Totoros directly.  The thick chocolate is a bit harder to handle but the chocolate ends up hardening much more solidly, which I prefer.

If you don't want to form ears, you can use large chocolate chips instead.  I dabbed each white chocolate chip into a bit of melted chocolate and attached the ears onto the rice crispy "face".

And that's it! It's pretty simple, theoretically. It takes awhile to get used to handling the sticky rice crispy mixture and also the thick chocolate. Once you get the hang of that, though, you can spit these out pretty quickly.

Enjoy! Yum yum . . .

Rice Crispies, Rice Krispies, Rice Crispy, Rice Krispy

Hello Kitty Rice Crispy Treats

After successfully tackling Totoro Rice Crispy treats, I decided to make these cute Hello Kitty treats for my little cousins this Christmas.  Here's the detailed tutorial on how to make them.  Thanks to my mother-in-law for snapping some pictures of me while I was making these!

Ingredients
Rice Crispy Treat:
6 cups Toasted Rice Cereal (e.g. Rice Krispies Cereal)
4 T butter
1 package 10.5 oz mini marshmallows
Decorations:
M&M's (ideally red & pink ones)
mini-dark chocolate chips
Note: Hello Kitty's nose is actually yellow.  If you have access to mini yellow candies of some sort, you can try those.  The normal yellow M&Ms were too big, and this supermarket had no yellow alternative, so I stuck with the mini chocolate chips.

Make rice crispy treats according to the instructions on the package.  In this case, I melted 4 T butter with one 10.5 oz package of mini marshmallows.  Once melted, add 6 cups of rice crispies cereal and stir until combined.

Once it's combined, work quickly!!!  Wet your hands slightly and start shaping the rice crispy mixture into oblong spheres with ears.  If you work too slowly, the mixture will cool down and harden, thus become difficult to mold.

Instead of shaping the ears, you can also make the egg-like balls first and then attach little ears after the fact.

I also made some Totoros, which are essentially cones with 2 ears on top.

A finished Totoro pre-chocolate dunking.

Once you have shaped the Hello Kitties, add the mini-chocolate chips by ramming them point-first into the "face."  Likewise, press two M&M's into one side of her head below her ear.  I actually think I put the bow on the wrong side, but it doesn't really matter!

Again, this step is easier to do when the mixture is still sort of warm.

For the Totoros, you can optionally dunk them in chocolate (see this post for details).  Unlike last time, I did not mix the melted chocolate with oil at all.  Instead, I just melted the chocolate chips in the microwave (45 seconds - stir - then another 45 seconds), and dunked the Totoros directly.  The thick chocolate is a bit harder to handle but the chocolate ends up hardening much more solidly, which I prefer.

If you don't want to form ears, you can use large chocolate chips instead.  I dabbed each white chocolate chip into a bit of melted chocolate and attached the ears onto the rice crispy "face".

And that's it! It's pretty simple, theoretically. It takes awhile to get used to handling the sticky rice crispy mixture and also the thick chocolate. Once you get the hang of that, though, you can spit these out pretty quickly.

Enjoy! Yum yum . . .

Rice Crispies, Rice Krispies, Rice Crispy, Rice Krispy

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!

I spent a part of my holiday making these cute treats for my little "cousins" (they are ages 2-9 but technically are part of our generation - you know how big families were a generation back).  My "aunt" (who is close to my age) had seen my post on Totoro Rice Crispy Treats and had asked whether I could make them for the family Christmas dinner.

Of course, I happily obliged and also made trays and trays of Hello Kitty.

Yum yum . . .

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas! :)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!

I spent a part of my holiday making these cute treats for my little "cousins" (they are ages 2-9 but technically are part of our generation - you know how big families were a generation back).  My "aunt" (who is close to my age) had seen my post on Totoro Rice Crispy Treats and had asked whether I could make them for the family Christmas dinner.

Of course, I happily obliged and also made trays and trays of Hello Kitty.

Yum yum . . .

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas! :)

Mala (Spicy and Numbing) Broth for Sichuanese Hot Pot

This post is the fourth part of a mini-series anchored around the following post: A Culinary Tour of Hot Pots Throughout Asia.  The other parts of the series can be found here: Part II (Preparing Filet Mignon for Hot Pots) and Part III (Seryna - Kobe Beef Shabu Shabu).


Sichuan, China: This was the the first stop of our Culinary Tour of Hot Pots Throughout Asia

What sets the Sichuan hot pot apart from typical Chinese hot pots is its classic spicy broth, called mala.

The term "mala" in Chinese literally means Numbingly Spicy.  This wonderfully flavorful, numbingly spicy broth gets its characteristic flavors from Sichuan chilies and Sichuan peppercorns. The chilies give the soup a fiery burn, while the peppercorns have an unusual numbing effect on the tongue.



I recently tried a home-version of the mala broth based on a recipe by Fuchsia Dunlop from her highly regarded book, Land of Plenty.  Fuchsia Dunlop was the first foreigner to study Sichuanese cooking at the acclaimed Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine in Chengdu, China.

Warning!  This broth is really spicy and not for the faint of heart (or stomach!).  People with sensitive stomachs probably should not try this.  Also, turn on the vent and open the windows when you prepare this broth. The chilies will smoke a bit when you fry them, and can cause some spicy coughing fits.  I would not recommend preparing this recipe if you have any sort of lung condition.  

Adapted from Land of Plenty by Fuchsia Dunlop

Ingredients
·  1/4 cup fermented black beans
·  1/3 cup Shaoxing rice wine or medium-dry sherry
·  1 chunk fresh ginger, about 3 inches long
·  1/4 cup dried Sichuanese chilies, or regular red chilies
·  1/2 cup peanut or vegetable oil
·  2/3 cup beef drippings or lard
·  1/2 cup Sichuanese chile bean paste (la doban jiang)
·  3 quarts good beef stock
·  1 tablespoon rock sugar
·  1/2 cup Sichuanese fermented glutinous rice wine (optional)
·  Salt to taste
·  1 teaspoon whole Sichuan peppercorns

Mash the black beans with 1 tablespoon of the Shaoxing wine in a food processor until you have a smooth paste. Wash the ginger and cut it into slices about the thickness of a coin.


Snip the chilies into one-inch segments and try to remove as many seeds as possible.

Heat 3 T of vegetable oil over medium heat until hot (but not smoking). [Make sure the fan is on and the windows are open!] Cook the chilies in the hot oil until crisp and fragrant, taking care not to burn them (the oil should sizzle around the chilies).  Make sure they don't start turning black! 

Once crispy and fragrant, remove the chilies with a wooden spoon.  At this point, the recipe says to add the 2/3 cup beef drippings/lard to the oil until melted.  In an effort to make this more healthy, I omitted this step and just used vegetable oil.

Once everything is melted, add the hot chili bean paste (la doban jiang) and stir-fry for a minute or so until the oil is richly red and fragrant. This should sizzle gently - take care not to burn it.  You can turn down the heat periodically if you think you are in danger of burning it.  When the oil has reddened, add the mashed black beans and the ginger and continue to stir-fry until they are fragrant. Then pour in about 1 1/2 quarts of the stock and bring it to a boil.

When the liquid has come to a boil, add the rock sugar (or granulated sugar if you don't have rock sugar) and the rest of the Shaoxing rice wine, with the fermented rice wine if you have it, and salt to taste. (Note, I did not have fermented rice wine, so I did not add any of this).

Finally, add the prepared chilies (the ones you had fried up earlier) and Sichuan peppercorns according to taste and leave the broth to simmer 15-20 minutes, until it is wonderfully spicy.

I won't lie to you - this broth is REALLY SPICY!  If you aren't used to spicy foods, just be careful!  Don't eat too much!  My digestive system did not react most favorably to this - maybe it was just too spicy for me.  Bryan was fine, but then he usually eats much spicier than I do!  It is very fragrant, and has a lovely blend of different flavors.  I'm sure it would have tasted even better with the lard!

Serve this in conjunction with a non-spicy broth, as your guests will most likely need to take breaks from the spice!

Enjoy!