Taro Puffs

Taro puffs is one of my favourite thing to eat at Yum Cha. Even though I am not a fan of the pork, I will make an exception for these puffs. And that is saying a lot, when I don't even make exception for sui mais. ( another steamed dumpling, like wontons that has pork). I would eat chicken or seafood dumplings and avoid the pork items whenever I go yumcha.

I have always been fascinated by the outer layer of these taro puffs. I would scratched my head in wonderment, "how do they make the puffs to look like honeycomb pastries?" It is so intricate! Like lace. What kind of sorcery is this? How do I do this magic?? I want this power!!  :)

Then I discovered a recipe on YouTube, hahahahhah and low and behold, today I am trying that recipe. So here goes nothing.  Please go to her blog for recipe ingredients. I have doubled the ingredients to make mine, because I am greedy :)

First, I made the charsiu meat fillings for the dumplings.

Then I steamed one whole taro and smashed it and mixed it with the wheat starch mixes and butter.

And then I pounded on it, like my life depended on it! And finally, fast forward a few steps ...you don't need me to show you a photo of me deep frying these, .....tada.....  a deep fried Taro Puff!

Yumcha to me!! Happy happy dance!!!

Steamed Yam cake

A friend made Steamed Yam cake ages ago and posted it on her blog. Since then, I have been thinking about it and missed my own mother's yamcake. I was so happy to find some Taro at the local fruit shop and decided to try making it myself. I am sure it will not taste as good as my mum's. 

I had to substitute a few ingredients. Not the key ingredients, thank goodness, I have most of the ingredients to make the yam cake. I was missing oyster sauce, alkaline water, etc. I found another recipe online and improvise on it as I had to substitute some ingredients. See underlined.

Ingredient

500g yam, peeled and diced

40g dried prawns 

4 dried mushrooms, soaked and sliced 

300g rice flour 

100g corn flour (I used tapioca flour) 

100ml water 

500ml hot chicken stock (I only had beef cube stock at home)

2 tbsp oil 

1 tbsp shallot oil 

1 tbsp fish sauce ( I used Japanese Bonito sachets seasoning instead) 

Some grind black pepper

1/4 tsp five spice powder 

1 tbsp oyster sauce ( I had no oyster sauce, this was omitted) 

1 tsp of sugar ( This was not added )

Seasoning

2 tsp salt 

3 tbsp oyster sauce 

1 tbsp shallot oil 

2 tsp sesame oil 

1 tbsp fish sauce ( I used Japanese Bonito sachets seasoning instead)

A dash of pepper

Garnish

2 stalks of coriander, roughly chopped 

2 red chillis, de-seeded and sliced 

1 tsp of toasted white sesame seeds

Method

1. Dice the yam into 1cm square cubes.

2. Rinse then soak the dried prawns until soft. Keep 80ml of the soaking liquid. 

3. Heat two tablespoons of cooking oil with one tablespoon of shallot oil. 

4. Fry the dried prawns and sliced mushroom. 

5. Add the diced yam, the prawn liquid and 80ml of water. 

6. Season with one tablespoon of fish sauce, a quarter teaspoon of five spice powder, one tablespoon of oyster sauce, one teaspoon of sugar and a dash of pepper. 

7. Cover and fry intermittently for five minutes until the yam is cooked and yields easily when poked with chopstick.

8. Remove from wok and set aside. 

9. Put the rice flour and corn flour in a large metal container. Stir in the water.

10. Add the hot chicken stock and mix well. Add in the seasoning followed by the yam mixture. 

11. Steam for 40 minutes. Garnish with coriander, sliced fresh red chilli and sesame seeds.

The result was amazing, I didn't think it would be successful, given that, I had a few things missing. However, it was rather delicious, it was just amazing as memories of home, flooded into my mind at the taste of the first bite. I must add to, that my chilli sauce was stupendous! Just spectacular, fresh chilies sauce are the best to serve this steamed yamcake with. :)