Pau

I have invited the monk for breakfast on this coming sat morning and want to treat him Dim Sum.  Therefore, I am testing the different kinds of  Dim Sum this week. I have tried Har Gow (Crystal Prawn Dumpling), Pan fried dumpling, pan fried shrimp, pork/shrimp paste  bean curd roll and Pau. Har Gow skin was unsuccessful and need to retry. The pan fried dumpling, pan fried shrimp was okay. The shrimp paste in bean curd  sheet is better to pan fry than steam. Pau was not really successfully.

I looked for pau recipes from chinese version websites and finally, I used below recipe that is similar to the recipe from RasaMalaysia which is in english version, only amount of ingredients are slightly different. I have included the notes from RasaMalaysia. Next time I want to try this recipe or this one from Corner Cafe and will exclude the baking powder.

Pau tastes  a little bitter due to 20 minutes resting time after adding the baking powder and I might exclude baking powder next time. My first batch has some brown spot on the pau surface as the baking powder was not fully dissolved. The skin was yellowish as I used cake flour and potato flour, the recipe called for low protein flour and corn flour. In past, I used wheat starch and flour and only succeed one time. So far, I don't know where to get Hongkong flour or special white flour here. I saw only pau flour in the asian stores and not sure whether it is premix pau flour or white wheat flour for pau.

The yellowish skin is partially caused by oil too. That's why, people use lard or shortening instead. Since the skin is yellowish because of flour type I used, I will use the oil instead of shortening for health reason.  Other than that, puffiness and softness was okay. I read from RasaMalaysia that whiter bun will be produced by adding a few drops of vinegar into steaming water and smooth surface after steamed will be produced by spraying the surface of bun with water mist. I found the pau pleating video from tudou, It seems easy but it is not that simple. I still need improvement on that aspect.

I tried vegetable pau and char siew pau, I bought the char siew from the market and used char siew filling recipe from Joe's Deli.  I reduced the amount of sugar as I dont want filling too sweet. The below recipe made 11 small paus (25g dough) and 10 medium paus (40g dough). The small pau is too small and probably I should make 40g dough for small pau and 60g dough for big pau.

I made the pau for monk on last Saturday with different method. Lucky, I found the failed proof chinese version pau making video from tuduo and tried it out. Wow, it is simple, easy and shorter time and pau is fluffy too. The pau skin still yellowish as I used cake flour instead of super white flour. Here, the lady mentioned that we cannot omit baking powder to make fluffy pau. After experimented with old method, I am thinking of excluding the baking powder. Now seem like I have to include baking power from now on.

In chinese version video, the person said wrap bun with filling first then let it rise. If let dough  rise and then wrap the bun, then let it rise, nothing to rise more so sometimes the pau is not fluffy after steamed. I also realized that the filling has to be dry and the skin cannot be too thin. When I do vegetable pau, the filling is a little wet and the skin is thin, so the steamed pau's skin was not rise and stuck to filling (See below photo). I learned so much  this time.

I also found the unique vegetables fillings with egg and it was yummy if we like vegetables. I will not include the detail measurement for vegetable fillings as it is simple and we, gal knows how to adjust the amount accordingly. The filling includes chinese cabbage - finely chopped (take stem only and leave the leaf for other use, boil in hot water for awhile), fried eggs - finely chopped, ginger - minced, spring onion - minced (use below white part only), few string of fried vermicelli - smashed to small pieces. To fry vermicelli, heat oil. While hot, place the dry vermicelli String into oil, vermicelli should be submerged in the oil. After it rise, remove it and place on paper. 

There is no difference between two dough recipes. Both work great. I have updated the method of pau making. Those pau below were made with new method and I used mix of wheat flour from Korea and corn flour. But the texture was not much different. My hubby prefers pau with cake flour as it gives softer texture. When did  pleating, I should have added more patterns as the patterns  were almost gone after risen.

Ingredients(Dough I):
8g instant dry yeast/ active dry yeast
160ml lukewarm water
280g low-protein flour (cake flour/ Hongkong flour) / flour
120g corn flour/ potato four/wheat starch
10g - 40g sugar
30g shortening or vegetable oil
10g baking powder

Ingredients(Dough II):
6g active dry yeast
150ml lukewarm water
200g low-protein flour (cake flour/ Hongkong flour) / flour
100g corn flour/ potato four/wheat starch
15g sugar
5g baking powder
15g vegetable oil

Direction:

1. Mix lukewarm water, yeast, little sugar and proof for 10 minutes.
2. Place flour, corn flour, sugar, baking powder in large mixing bow.
3. Add the yeast mixture into flour and add oil/shortening. Add remaining water (if too dry, add more water and if too wet, add flour) and beat with mixer or by hand until dough become soft and smooth.
4. Divide the dough into 30g or 50g each and then flatten with either hand or rolling pin to make circle. The circle center should be thicker than the circle edges. Then put a heap tablespoon of filling in the middle, wrap and pleat the dough to seal (See, pau pleating video). Place it on a 2.5” square parchment paper, seal side up.
5. Cover bun with damp cloth and let it rise for 30 minutes or until it is doubled in size (But don't leave too long as pau might taste bitter due to baking powder).
6. Preheat the steamer till water boils vigorously.
7. Arrange buns into a steamer, leave about 1” gab in between buns. Steam in a preheated steamer on high heat for 20 minutes.
8. Remove buns from steamer and cool on rack to prevent soggy bottom.