Appon's Thai Food Recipes

Appon's Thai Food Recipes tag:www.khiewchanta.com,2012://1 2012-05-12T06:40:38Z Movable Type 3.34 Fish with Roe in Breadcrumbs tag:www.khiewchanta.com,2012://1.2249 2012-05-12T06:18:12Z 2012-05-12T06:40:38Z

These fish with the fish roe inside, are called Capelin in English, at least that's what I think they're called. They are a sardine sized fish that come close to shore to spawn and fishermen catch them in the shallows when they're full of eggs. The yellow eggs, or roe, are left inside after gutting the fish. You can buy them at the supermarkets of Thailand, if you ask for 'blah-khai' (literally fish-egg), the fish monger will know what you're asking for, or print out the photo after the break to show him. I was at the opening of Mega Bangna shopping mall, and at an all-you-can-eat buffer there, I ate these BlaKhai fried in breadcrumbs. ]]> Ingredients 10 Fish with Roe Inside 5-10 Tablespoons Breadcrumbs 2 Beaten Egg 5-10 Tablespoons Wheat Flour Pinch of salt Chilli sauce for dipping Preparation 1. Start with gutted and prepped fish, the fish monger will do this for you. 2. I'm sure you're familiar with the breading process, but I'll take you through it anyway.Set out your three parts, flour+salt, egg and breadcrumbs on three separate plates ready. 3. This fish is better double coated with flour, so start by dipping it in flour to get it coated and shake off the excess. 4. Then the egg, get it completely coated with egg. 5. Back into the flour for the second layer, again get it fully coated and shake off any excess. 6. Then back in the egg, and finally into the breadcrumbs for it's final coating. 7. For frying this needs a lower temperature oil, 170 degrees celsius is fine. You want time for the fish to crunch up a little before the breadcrumbs become too brown. So you want it to gently fry. 8. Drain on kitchen paper, serve with spicy or sweet chilli sauce. ]]> Sweet Cheese Bread Fingers ( Ka Noom Pang Cheesestick ) tag:www.khiewchanta.com,2012://1.2174 2012-05-06T13:17:50Z 2012-05-08T03:29:17Z

Although it's not what you expect when you make cheese bread, these are sweet and covered in bakers mayonnaise. It's rare to find bread that isn't sweet in Thailand and good cheese is often expensive, so it's common to find cheaper cheese dishes like this with added sugar to add an extra layer of flavour to them. I'd like to be enthusiastic about the sweet Thai versions of western foods. But I think they're a tragedy, all high calorie and high sugar and soft texture. Bakers mayonnaise is just a sweeter mayonnaise, and Pacto 3 is a flour improver, if you don't use it, the texture will be firmer, but not unpleasant. Without the Pacto 3, you also can't work the dough as much, work it like a regular bread dough. ]]> Ingredients 500 gms All Purpose Flour 1 Tablespoon Yeast 1 1/2 Teaspoon Pacto 3 (Optional) 90 gms Sugar 2 Teaspoons Salt 220 gms Water 1 Medium Egg 1 Medium Egg Yolk 70 gms Butter ( Chopped to small square 1x1cm ) 70 gms Grated Cheese 100 gms Bakers Mayonnaise Preparation 1. Mix the yeast, Pacto3, sugar and salt together. 2. Mix all the liquids together (water, egg, egg york) in a blender, add the dry ingredients 3. Mix with a dough hook for 30 minutes. Test it, you should be able to pull a thin sheet layer out of the dough. If it doesn't mix it some more. This takes a lot of mixing! 3. Cover and leave to rest for 45 minutes 4. Split the dough into 70 gms pieces and leave for 10 minutes. 5. Roll each piece flat, place one piece of the button inside and bring over the edges pressing them together to crimp the butter inside. 6. Roll them flat again, this time roll them into a rectangle, like a flat finger bun. 7. Leave for another 15 minutes, this should rise again. 8. Heat the oven to 200 celsius. 9. Cover with the cheese, mayonnaise and bake for 10-12 minutes. ]]> Bitter Ribs ( Gang Khee Lage Gar Doog Mu ) tag:www.khiewchanta.com,2006://1.1401 2012-05-03T12:22:13Z 2012-05-03T06:47:46Z

My grandmother loved this recipe, but if you don't boil and rinse the Bi Khee Lage (the plant in the sauce) enough it is too bitter. A quick shortcut is to use the canned, which you can buy in...

My grandmother loved this recipe, but if you don't boil and rinse the Bi Khee Lage (the plant in the sauce) enough it is too bitter. A quick shortcut is to use the canned, which you can buy in Asian grocers. ]]> Ingredients

500 gms Pork Ribs 100 gms Bi Khee Lage, Canned 380 ml Coconut Milk 2 Garlic Cloves 4-6 Chillies 1 Tablespoon Red Curry Paste 120 ml Water 4 Tablespoons Fish Sauce 1-2 Tablespoons Sugar Preparation 1. Fry the pork ribs in oil, brown them all over for extra flavour. 2. Add coconut milk and bring to the boil. 3. Pound the garlic, chillies and red curry paste together in a Thai mortar, and add to the boiling milk. 4. Add water and the green bitter vegetable, add the fish sauce, and sugar. 5. Simmer until the ribs are well cooked. You can leave them overnight and cook again the next day for maximum flavours. 6. The taste you are looking for is a little bit salty a little bit bitter, adjust the seasonings to get that by adding sugar and salt as necessary.]]> Fruit Carving Knives tag:www.khiewchanta.com,2012://1.2241 2012-04-19T14:33:12Z 2012-04-19T15:14:53Z

Have you ever seen those detailed fruit carvings you commonly see in Thai restaurants? Making those carvings is a skill. I've embedded a video showing how it's done below. A large part is the special narrow pointy knife needed to do the delicate carvings. You do need the right tool for the job. I've managed to find a trade supplier for those knives at the BIG+BIH trade show. They've promised to email me a list of retailers who sell the knives to the public, for the moment their website is here: Kom Kom Products (Website), in Bangkok .]]> ]]> Salted Pineapple tag:www.khiewchanta.com,2012://1.2240 2012-04-17T09:52:10Z 2012-04-18T03:46:44Z

Over on my Thai life blog, I'm covering Songkran, the Thai New Year, in Chonburi. Although I don't have time to make a lot of recipes at the moment, I'd like to point this out to you. In Thailand...

Over on my Thai life blog, I'm covering Songkran, the Thai New Year, in Chonburi. Although I don't have time to make a lot of recipes at the moment, I'd like to point this out to you. In Thailand its common to salt fruit like pineapple, or orange juice with a little salt. Why not try it? ]]> Thai Peanut Cookies ( Tuar Pen Taut ) tag:www.khiewchanta.com,2009://1.1955 2012-04-11T09:07:43Z 2012-04-11T09:13:57Z

These traditional cookies are fried peanuts cookies, cooked in very hot oil, in a special metal ladle. When I was young we would buy these in the market stalls freshly made, but supermarkets in Thailand also sell them now. Ideally to make these you need a flat metal round ladle, a bowl shaped metal ladle tends to collect the mixture in the middle, leaving the cookies thick in the middle, but overcooked at the edge. You end up with all the peanuts in the middle too! The ladle is preheated in the oil, the mixture poured in, and lowered into the oil to finish cooking. The limestone water is the water from dissolved limestone used to stiffen the mixture. It's optional, but makes the cookie more crunchy. If you use the baking soda you get a fluffed up cookies, if you omit it, you get a flatter crisper cookies (as in the photos). ]]> Ingredients

200 gms Peanut ( Raw, not roasted! ) 60 gms Rice Flour 30 gms Wheat Flour 2 Tablespoons Cassava Starch 1/2 Teaspoon Salt 3 Tablespoons Sugar 1 Egg 1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda (Optional) 115 ml Limestone Water 115 ml Coconut Milk Oil for frying Round Metal Flat Based Ladle Preparation 1. Clean and leave the peanuts to dry. 2. Mix the rice four, cassava starch, flour, baking soda, and salt. 3. Add the egg, the coconut milk and limestone water, mix them well together into a smooth mixture. It should be runny at this point, add a little more water if it isn't. 4. Heat the oil to a medium heat, 180 degrees celsius. 5. Preheat the ladle in the oil, this is especially important if you are using a bowl shaped ladle! 6. Pour enough mixture into the ladle to coat the inside, you can swirl it around. Sprinkle some of the peanuts into the ladle and return it to the oil. 7. The cookie will float when it is cooked and golden, remove it and drain it on kitchen paper. ]]> Red Barbeque Pork ( Mu Dang ) tag:www.khiewchanta.com,2006://1.1186 2012-04-09T07:47:05Z 2012-04-09T09:36:19Z

This is a red barbeque pork dish normally served with rice, soft boiled eggs, and a thick rich cinnamon and peanut sauce. In its authentic Thai version it is a complete filling meal, however you can also simply use the pork as a side dish to another recipe. It is better to use a pork cut that has some fat, the fat adds a lot of flavour. For the best result, marinade the pork overnight. ]]> Ingredients

for 4 People 500 gms Pork Meat With Fat 50 gms Thai Red Pork Seasoning Mix. 150 ml Water The pork seasoning mix is available from Asian supermarkets in packets or you can use Teriyaki seasoning mix which is very similar. Preparation 1. Mix seasoning powder with water. 2. Marinade the pork in the red mix for 2-3 hours at minimum. 3. Roast in an oven at 200 degrees celsius for 20 minutes. 4. Serve the pork sliced thinly with the rice, and vegetables and covered with the cinnamon sauce (described below). Serve With Cucumber Spring Onions Coriander Leaves Boiled Eggs Thai sweet sausage Thick Cinnamon Peanut Sauce Thick Cinnamon Sauce This sauce can also be served as a side dish in its own right. Ingredients 200 ml Water 2 Tablespoons Light Soy Sauce 1 Teaspoon Salt 1 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon 1 Tablespoon Sugar 1 Tablespoon Peanuts 1 Tablespoon Cassava Starch (Or Corn Starch if you can't find Cassava) Preparation 1. Boil the water in a sauce pan, add the light soy sauce, salt, cinnamon, and sugar. Simmer for 2 minutes. 2. Mix the cassava starch with 3 tablespoons of cold water add to the sauce pan and mix. Simmer for another minute. 3. Pound the peanuts in a Thai mortar (or chop them to make them smaller) and add to the sauce.]]> Shrimp Pork Noodle Dim Sum tag:www.khiewchanta.com,2012://1.2233 2012-03-05T09:56:39Z 2012-03-05T06:04:31Z

I'm working in the kitchen of a restaurant these days. I have hospital bills to pay from Liew's motorcycle accident and this blog makes barely enough money to pay for ingredients let alone any real bills! So on the down side, the food articles are few and far between as I'm busy, but on the plus side, I can show you some of the excellent food they sell at the restaurant I work in. Here I'm making a special dim-sum recipe, shrimp wrapped in pork and glass noodle.]]> Ingredients

50 gms Pork Mince 30 gms Carrot 5 Shitake Mushrooms ( Soak for 1 hour if dried) 20 g. Glass Noodles 6 Large Shrimp 2 Cloves Garlic 2 Coriander Roots (use leaves if you can't get the root) 1 Tablespoon Pepper 1 Tablespoon Pork Seasoning Powder (Ros Dee or similar)

Preparation 1. Chop or blend the carrots into very tiny pieces. 2. Blend all the ingredients except the shrimp, together. 3. Clean the shrimp, remove the shell, leaving just the tail on, cut down the back and remove the gut, if there is a string black vein down the inside, remove that too. 4. Take a dollop of the mixture in your hands and press it around the shrimp leaving just the tail sticking out. 5. Steam for 10 minutes. 6. Serve with a dim sum dipping sauce (e.g. 50-50 mix light soy and white vinegar) ]]> Jade Dim Sum ( Geiw Yorg ) tag:www.khiewchanta.com,2012://1.2234 2012-03-04T10:08:45Z 2012-03-08T10:15:12Z

Since I'm working in the Dim Sum section of a kitchen, I'll cover some of the Dim Sum recipes I haven't yet done. This one is known as 'Jade Dim Sum' for the green pea (or pea aubergine) in...

Since I'm working in the Dim Sum section of a kitchen, I'll cover some of the Dim Sum recipes I haven't yet done. This one is known as 'Jade Dim Sum' for the green pea (or pea aubergine) in the top. It's made from shrimp and pork, and wrapped in green dim sum leaves to enhance the colour. ]]> Ingredients

6 Sheets Green Dim Sum Pastry 50 gms Pork Mince 4 Shrimps 1 Tablespoon Coriander Leaves 1 Tablespoon Spring Onions 1 Teaspoon Pork Seasoning Powder (Ros Dee or similar) 6 Green Peas or Pea-aubergines Preparation 1. Shell the shrimp, cut down the back and remove the gut, chop into very small pieces. 2. Chop the spring onions and coriander leaves, again, very finely. 3. Mix the shrimp, chopped onion and leaves, seasoning powder and pork together. 4. Place a dollop in the center of the dim sum pastry and bring the edges up around it. 5. Place a pea in the center (a frozen pea is fine). 6. Take to steam for 10 minutes. ]]> Puffed Pork Rind tag:www.khiewchanta.com,2012://1.2230 2012-02-21T10:35:18Z 2012-02-21T10:53:23Z

You've seen these puffed pork rinds many times, but have you ever wondered how they're made? It turns out to be very simple. I'm using the pork skin I trimmed from the rolled pork, I made a few weeks back. It was sitting in the freezer just waiting to be used, and I decided I'd use it for a Pork Rind Salad.]]> Ingredients Large Piece of Pork Rind 3 Tablespoons Salt Water

Preparation 1. Boil the pork rind in salty water for 5 minutes. I used 2 Liters of water and 3 tablespoons of salt. 2. Remove any thick hairs from the rind, they're not pleasant, and cut the rind into small strips. 3. Spread out and leave to dry in the sun for 3-5 days. This is the most important part, the drying. When they've been dried long enough, they become shiny, if you don't let them dry they just don't puff up as well. You can see mine in the photograph above. 4. You can also dry them in a low oven to achieve a similar result, 120 degrees Celsius, for at least half an hour. Watch them closely, you don't want them to cook, just dry out and become shiny. 5. Heat vegetable oil till its hot and put them in, fry till they're puffed up. Best to try just one piece first. 6. If the oil is too cold or you haven't dried them well enough they don't puff up. You'll still end up with crunchy pork rind, but not puffed up crunchy pork rind. ]]> Spicy Sweet Seaweed tag:www.khiewchanta.com,2012://1.2229 2012-02-12T08:56:41Z 2012-02-12T09:14:56Z

Our version of potato chips, you have chips, we have seasoned seaweed. This one is sweet and spicy crispy seaweed, it doesn't look much in the photograph, but it packs a punch in flavour. It's better to use chilli-flakes rather than ground chilli. The sweetness will hit first, then the spiciness as you chew the seaweed, and break the chilli flakes up in your mouth. It makes for a more interesting experience. The chicken seasoning powder used in the recipe is one you've seen me use often. It's a powdered version of a stock cube. Look for the Thai Brand 'Ros-Dee' or Knorr also make a similar powder here in Thailand.]]> Ingredients

1 1/2 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil 1 Teaspoon Dried Chilli Flakes 1 Teaspoon Chicken Seasoning Powder 1 Pinch of Salt 1 Tablespoon of Honey 3 Sheets of Seaweed Paper Preparation 1. Mix all the ingredients together except for the seaweed. 2. Spread the mixture evenly over one side of the seaweed paper. I found it was easier to do this with my fingers, be sure to only use less than 1/3rd of the mixture, and spread it thinly. The powder doesn't really mix into the oil, so take some time to spread the seasonings as best you can. 3. Grill until the honey bubbles up, this took 4 minutes with my small grill, once this was done they were crispy. 4. Cut and leave to cool. 5. Spend the next hour trying to make them look good in a photograph (optional step). ]]> Mango and Sticky Rice Daifuku tag:www.khiewchanta.com,2012://1.2228 2012-02-04T11:20:46Z 2012-02-05T16:04:57Z

I made Strawberry Daifuku, only a few days ago. The Japanese dumpling with the strawberry in it. But if you've read my blog, you'll know by now I want to bring Thai flavours to these dishes, and here I'm filling a Daifuku with a Coconut Sticky Rice and a Mango center. Instead of strawberry, we have the mango, instead of the sweet bean paste, I have the sweet/salty coconut sticky rice. Even if I say so myself, this really worked well. The resulting dumpling had an extra texture from the sticky rice, and the coconut flavour is far more interesting than the sweet bean paste, which made it better than the strawberry original. I think with a little more practice I could keep the mango in the center, but nothing is perfect. ]]> Ingredient For Filling

50 gms Glutinous (Sticky) Rice 1 Mango 100 ml Water 50 ml Coconut Milk 50 gms Sugar 1/4 Teaspoon Salt 1/4 Teaspoon Rice Flour Preparation for Filling 1. Soak the glutinous rice in some water for a few hours. This will make the sticky rice easier to cook. 2. Steam the rice for 15 minutes to cook it through. The best thing for steaming sticky rice is the specially made steamer. If you want to steam using a normal steamer, put it as flat as you can in a plate and drain off excess water when its finished cooking. 3. Into a sauce-pan, put the water and sugar, and bring to the boil to dissolve the sugar. 4. Add the cooked sticky rice into the sugar pan and stir well to mix it. 5. In a different sauce pan, put the coconut milk, the rice flour, and salt and cook it on a low heat for 5 minutes or until the coconut milk thickens from the flour. 6. Add this coconut milk to the sticky-rice place in a bowl and leave to cool and the liquids to be absorbed. 6. Peel the mango. For this we need small balls of mango, I used a 1 teaspoon measure to ball the mango for my centers and got 6 small balls from 1 mango about 2.5cms diameter each. 7. Take the sticky rice and form it around the melon ball. Again I used my measuring spoons, using the 1 tablespoon measure to form a ball to make 4cm diameter balls. They're quite big, but the balance was right. Place in a covered box in the fridge. 8. Next we make the outer wrapper. Ingredients for Outside 100 gms Sticky Rice Flour 95-100 mls Water 2 tablespoons Sugar Potato or Corn Starch for Dusting Preparation 1. Mix the flour and sugar together, add the water and mix. Keep mixing until you get a smooth liquid paste. If you refer to the video link in the Strawberry Daifuku recipe, it does a good job of showing how to make this. 2. Place in a bowl and steam for 15 minutes. 3. Mix the paste again with a spatula, cover and leave to cool to room temperature. 4. It is very sticky, so get some potato or corn starch. 5. Dust your fingers, and a plate with the starch, place the sticky cooked dough on the plate and cut into 6 equal pieces. Even though the centers are larger, I found I could stretch this dough to cover the larger ball. 6. Press out each piece into a small disc between your fingers, take one of the sticky rice covered melon balls and place in the center, bring the edges of the sticky dough over and pinch it closed at the top. 7. Brush off any excess starch and leave to settle in the fridge. ]]> Strawberry Daifuku tag:www.khiewchanta.com,2012://1.2227 2012-02-02T09:28:51Z 2012-02-02T11:32:26Z

The famouse Japanese sweet dumpling, 'Daifuku' is similar to our Thai rice ball, a sweet filling contained in a wrapper made from glutinous rice flour. There is one that has a nice variation on this theme, and that's Ichigo Daifuku, a three part Daifuku, with a whole strawberry at its center. I'm using the recipe of 'Cooking with Dog', the video blog for Japanese cooking. She makes it look easy, but I find the hardest part is wrapping the center with the glutinous rice dough. The trick is to pinch out the pastry into a circular disc first, using plenty of starch to avoid it sticking. That made it easier to pull the pastry around the strawberry and end up with something even and thin. Don't make the outer layer too think, it will be unpleasantly chewy and spoiled the effect of the daifuku, if you have too much glutinous dough when you pinch the edges together, pinch off any excess. The other thing is, use a small slightly sour strawberry for this. The strawberry sourness is the contrast for the sweet red bean paste. If it's too ripe and sweet you lose the effect. Perhaps I'll try marzipan instead of red bean paste. You need sweetness, and firmness in that layer, but it strikes me that marzipan is the perfect layer there. Or even the sweet yellow bean paste, the Chinese use for in sweet pies. ]]> Ingredients

100 gms Sticky Rice Flour 95-100 mls Water 2 tablespoons Sugar Potato or Corn Starch for Dusting 150 gms Sweet Red Bean Paste 6 Small Strawberries

Preparation 1. Cut off the green cap of the strawberries, clean and dry. 2. Cover thinly in the red bean paste, set aside in the fridge. 3. Mix the flour and sugar together, add the water and mix. Keep mixing until you get a smooth liquid paste. 4. Place in a bowl and steam for 15 minutes. 'Cooking With Dog' covered the steamer lid with a cloth, but this proved unnecessary, just be careful when opening it so the water doesn't drip from the lid into the cooked paste. 5. Mix the paste again with a spatula, cover and leave to cool to room temperature. 6. It is very sticky at this point, so get some starch, potato or corn starch will do. 7. Dust your fingers, and a plate, place the sticky cooked dough on the plate and cut into 6 equal pieces. 8. Press out each piece into a small disc, take a strawberry wrapped in bean paste and place it in the center and pull the disc over it and pinch it shut. 9. Brush off any excess starch and leave to settle in the fridge. ]]> Pork Hair Toast tag:www.khiewchanta.com,2012://1.2226 2012-02-01T03:05:54Z 2012-02-01T03:29:14Z

Another variation on the sweet toast theme. This one is salty sweet pork hair toast. Pork hair or fiber is pork meat, dried and rubbed to form fibers, it is widely available in Asia grocers. The sweetness comes from sweet mayonnaise, often called 'salad cream', the kind with 20% sugar. When I bought these in the market, I thought it used a lot of pork, but when you actually make them, you realize the pork is sitting on a line of mayonnaise and that is what glues it to the toast! So its very economical with the pork. ]]> Ingredients

Sweet Mayonnaise Thin Sliced White Bread Pork Hair

Preparation 1. Trim the bread of any crusts. I couldn't get bread thin enough, so I carefully cut each slice in half to make it half the thickness. 2. Toast the bread on one side. 3. On the untoasted side, pipe two lines of mayonnaise, each slice will make two pork-toast strips. 4. Dust the pork hair onto the mayonnaise to cover it. 5. Pipe a zig-zag of mayonnaise over the top, and cut into two bread strips. 6. You can see the 3 stages of preparation in the photo above, the line of mayonnaise, the line covered with pork hair, and finished one with the zig-zag of mayonnaise on the top. 6. Toast under a grill until the bread is crisp. 7. Eat warm or cold, but keep out of moist air or they will go soggy. ]]> Bursting Buns tag:www.khiewchanta.com,2012://1.2223 2012-01-28T11:03:09Z 2012-01-29T02:24:18Z

I first saw these buns in China Town, when I went to the Chinese New Year Celebrations. They are a steamed bread bun, stuffed with all kinds of Thai meats and salty egg till they're bursting out. There's two versions of this I've seen, one has an extra layer of pork mince and corn flour in the middle to hold the roll together. If you want to make that version, mix a couple of tablespoons of corn flour, with pork mince and seasoning. Add this at the filling stage along the center of the bun then stick the other ingredients into this. I preferred to keep the bun dry, so I could drizzle some dim-sum sauce on it, and this variation tends to soak up fat from the pork mince. You can see my Thai meat platter for ideas on meats you can use, and this dish also uses pork hair, the fibers of the pork meat.]]> Ingredients for 4 Buns

220 gms Flour (all purpose flour) 1 1/2 Teaspoons Dried Yeast 1 1/2 Tablespoons Sugar Pinch of Salt 230 mls Water 2 Tablespoons Oil

Ingredients For Filling 2 Hot Dogs 5-10 Sliced Cooked Sweet Sausage 1 Hard Boiled Salty Egg Pork Hair 4 Shitake Mushrooms Preparation 1. If your shitake mushrooms are dried, leave them to soak them for 10 minutes in warm water. 2. Mix flour and dried yeast. 3. In a separate bowl, mix the water, oil, sugar and salt together until the sugar has dissolved. 4. Add the water mix to the flour mix. You want to make a firm dough here, so adjust the amount of liquid and flour to achieve this. Too dry, a little more water, too wet, a little more flour. 5. You need to work this dough for a good 2-3 minutes. Pushing and folding (kneading action) to make it more elastic. It's not going to be baked, so it doesn't need the full working that you'd use for making bread, on the other hand it isn't a cake, it does need kneading. 6. Place dough in a bowl, cover with a damp cloth and leave for 30 minutes to rise. 7. After 30 minutes, knock it down again and work it again for a couple of minutes more 8. Again cover with a damp cloth, let it rise again for 10-15 minutes. 9. Cut it into 4 equal portions. Form each portion into a finger bun shape. 10. Place on greaseproof paper squares in the steamer. Space them well apart they will expand. 11. At baking school, they had a steam room to let doughs rise, at home I put a little water in the steamer, and just warm it up so there is a little warmth and moister inside the steamer. Then leave the dough in that state for another 10-15 minutes so the buns puff up again. 12. Turn the steamer on full, steam them till they're cooked through, 10 minutes is usually enough for my steamer. You can check they are cooked by sticking a toothpick in and seeing if it comes out clean. If it's not cooked it comes out with some dough mixture on it. 13. Cut the ends of the hotdog sausages in a cross pattern. Then cut them in half. 14. Slice open the bun, stick slices of the pork, half a hotdog, a slice of salty egg, slices of shitake mushroom and some pork hair, all sticking out of the bun for the bursting effect. 15. Put the bun back to steam for another 5 minutes, the hot dog sausage will open up, and although Thai sausages are already cooked, its safer in a hot country just to steam them again like this. 16. This is nice with a little dim-sum sauce drizzled over it (half white vinegar, half light soy), or even a little fish sauce or Maggi sauce. ]]>