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.

Continue reading "Mango and Sticky Rice Daifuku" »

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.

Continue reading "Strawberry Daifuku" »

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.

Continue reading "Pork Hair Toast" »

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.

Continue reading "Bursting Buns" »

With so many prepared meats in Thailand, it's worth just preparing a simple Thai pickle and meat platter. There's almost no work involved yet the result is every bit as good as a cooked dish, there are sweet meats, savory meats, crunchy meats, spicy meat. If you want to expand the textures, don't forget the hairy meats too. For more unusual pickles, well you could add sweet pickled turnip.

Continue reading "Thai Meat Pickle Platter" »

This rolled, boiled, belly pork forms the centerpiece of noodle dishes, the pork is fatty, but the fat has been cooked down to a delicious melt-in-the-mouth texture. Once it's cooked, it is left cold and sliced as thinly as you can make it, then use it to garnish noodle dishes like the one shown below. Start with three layer pork (pork belly with the fat still attached), the fat is essential, it is what binds the roll together and brings the flavour. Make the roll a day ahead, it needs a long time to boil and to be completely cold before slicing.
Be sure to tie this with proper cord string, and not the plastic kind. The meat roll is browned on the outside in a frying pan, plastic string would melt at this stage if you used it.

Continue reading "Rolled Fatty Pork for Noodles" »