Time for breakfast

Breakfast is a big deal in China. Unlike the States, the first meal of the day is a lot more than eggs, bacon, bread, and cereal. In fact, it’s a terrific reason to get out of bed any day of the week. 

In most places I’ve visited in China, little stands do nothing but prepare breakfast specialties that are ready from the wee hours of the night until lunchtime. And boy, do they have some tasty things on the menu.

One of my favorites is this, little hand pies whose Chinese name literally means “chive boxes.” Garlic chives are indeed the main attraction, but this being China, a deliciously savory edge completes the flavor range, and so there’s baby dried shrimp for a gently funky, salty layer, some tiny bits of scrambled egg for a meaty feel, and cellophane noodles to lighten up the texture. 

I changed the traditional recipe up slightly by frying the baby shrimp - which are called "shrimp skins" (xiāpí 蝦皮) in Chinese - to broadcast their flavor throughout the filling while tamping down their tendency to turn a tad soggy. And in case you are afraid that these will be overwhelmingly fishy, be assured that they instead turn into crispy bits that are barely noticed other than a suggestion of xianwei (umami) on the tongue.

In spite of all that, what I love best about this recipe is the pastry. It is simply the best one I know of, as it is light, thin, and fries up into a crisp layer that shatters in your mouth. It is easy to master, too.

A lovely coiled edge

Here's a video I made that shows you how to make an easy yet pretty coiled edge on your pastries. (A heads-up for those of you who are reading this at work: there's music on the video, so turn down the sound before clicking on the link.) 

Serve these with millet porridge whenever you want to start out the day with a smile on your face. 

Chive box pastries

Jiǔcài hé 韭菜盒

Beijing

Makes 1 dozen

Filling:

1 small bundle cellophane noodles

Warm water, as needed

Ready to fill the pastry

¼ cup | 60 ml fresh peanut or vegetable oil

¼ cup | 20 g dried baby shrimp

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

8 ounces | 225 g (or so) green garlic chives

½ to 1 teaspoon sea salt (see Tip)

½ teaspoon sugar

Freshly ground black pepper

Dough:

2 cups | 300 g Chinese flour

2 tablespoons fresh peanut or vegetable oil

½ cup | 125 ml boiling water

1 tablespoon cool water

More flour, as needed

Oil for frying

Chile sauce for dipping, optional

1. An hour or two before you plan to serve these, soak the cellophane noodles in warm water until they are completely soft and silky. Drain them well and then chop the noodles into pieces ¼-inch | 5 mm long or smaller. 

Fill the pastry

2. While the noodles are soaking, make the dough: place the flour and oil in a medium work bowl. Use chopsticks to stir in the hot water until large flakes are formed. Work in the cook water, adding more flour or cool water as necessary until it does not stick to your hands or the board. Knead the dough until it is soft and supple. Cover it with a damp tea towel or plastic wrap and let it rest for at least 20 minutes. Roll the dough into an even rope 12 inches | 30 cm long, and then cut it into 12 pieces. Toss these lightly with a bit of flour and let them rest again while you prepare the filling.

3. Make the filling just before you are about to fill the pastries, as otherwise the chives will wilt from the salt. Place a wok or frying pan over medium heat, and add the oil once it is hot. Sprinkle the baby shrimp in the oil and gently fry them — adjusting the temperature as necessary — until they are a golden brown. Scrape them into a small work bowl and return as much of the oil to the wok as possible. Return the wok to the stove and fry the eggs until they are scrambled nicely. Chop the eggs up into small pieces with your spatula and add them to the shrimp. Trim, rinse, and pat the chives very dry. Cut the chives into pieces ¼-inch | 5 mm long and add them to the shrimp and eggs. Season with the salt, sugar, and pepper. Divide the filling into 12 portions.

4. Roll each piece of dough into a 5-inch | 13-cm circle, and keep the dough covered whenever you are not using it. Wet your finger with water and draw a circle around the edge, which will help seal the dough. Fill the pastries by placing one portion of the filling in the center of the dough — be sure not to get any oil on the edge, as this will prevent the dough from sealing well. Pinch the pastry into a half-moon shape, and then curl the edge with a decorative braid, if you wish. These pastries should be immediately fried or frozen. (Frozen pastries can be fried later without being defrosted first.)

Folded up and ready for crimping

5. To fry the pastries, set a flat frying pan over medium heat. Film the pan with oil once it is hot and add only as many pastries as will fit without touching each other. Cover the pan and let them slowly fry on one side until golden on the bottom, and then uncover the pan and flip them over. Cover and fry them on the other side. When the second side is a light gold, uncover the pan and fry them until crispy. Serve immediately with a side of chile sauce, if you like.

Tip

Use 1 teaspoon of salt if you are going to eat these fresh. Freezing the pastries heightens their saltiness for some reason, so it you want to make these ahead of time, use half that amount of salt. If you are eating half and freezing the rest, then use the smaller amount and dust the pastries with a sprinkling of salt as soon as they have been fried.

Fried gold thread buns

Happy Year of the Dog!

This is one of the first banquet foods that completely blew my mind during that initial year in Taiwan. Why fried buns like this aren’t sold everywhere in the world is beyond my comprehension. 

For, they are like doughnuts, but not as sweet. and they're like beignets, but better. And, if I'm going to get all poetic on you, these are like the toast and jam the angels must dine on. And if they don’t, I would like to know why.

Gold thread buns are a variation on silver thread buns (also known as yínsījuăn 銀絲卷), which are a variation on mántóu 饅頭, or plain steamed buns. 

Silver thread buns are, I admit, much more common just about everywhere in Taiwan and North China. And you can make them easily from this recipe by simply not adding the sweet potatoes in Step 3. It’s that simple. And this will give you something that is honestly amazing.

Steamed gold thread buns

But the sweet potatoes here are so good. They make these buns look like a gorgeous cross between sushi and eggs. Plus, that mild vegetal sweetness transforms into something magically aromatic in here.

These buns are also all about texture, for the dough threads offer up a silky quality that teases the tongue underneath the tensile outer dough wrapper. 

Mashed sweet potatoes

And that’s the reason why these buns are so beloved at big northern-style banquets, at least back when I was a student in Taipei. This was treat food reserved for holidays and weddings, not something you could get every day. And yet, even then, these hadn’t reached the absolute pinnacle of dream food status, at least in my book.

No, for that you had to fry them. And serve them with a little dish of sweetened condensed milk on the side. Yes, I understand your trepidation, since we just don’t serve bread with condensed milk in the West, but stick with me here. Try this. It’s an insane level of delicious. 

Ask your Taiwanese friends whether they’d like to try a batch and watch them start to drool as their eyes roll back into their heads. Yup, they are that good.

Wrap the mash in the dough

Fried gold thread buns

Zhá jīnsījuăn 炸金絲捲

North China

Makes 24, serves 6

1½ teaspoons bread yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

1¼ cups | 300 ml warm water

Spray oil

3 cups | 450 g Chinese flour (or ⅔ all purpose flour + ⅓ pastry or cake flour), plus extra for kneading and shaping the dough

1 tablespoon softened unsalted butter or butter substitute, or vegetable oil

½ teaspoon sea salt

¼ cup | 70 g cooked and mashed red sweet potatoes, pumpkin, or carrots

Butter up the "threads"

2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar or coconut sugar

2 tablespoons melted unsalted butter or butter substitute, or vegetable oil, divided in half

Vegetable oil, as needed

Sweetened condensed milk, homemade or store bought, as needed

1. Sprinkle the yeast and sugar over the warm water, stir them in, and wait until the yeast has a heavy head of foam, about 30 minutes. While the yeast is blooming, set up your steamer. You’ll need two baskets lined with steamer paper. Spray the paper with oil. Cover the baskets, fill the pan with water, and bring the pan to a full boil with the baskets on top. This will warm up the baskets and make them ready for the buns.

Arrange the "threads" on the white dough

2. Measure the flour into a medium work bowl and pour in the yeast mixture, butter, and salt. Mix these together to form a flaky dough, and then turn this out onto a clean work surface. Knead the dough with a bit more flour until it is as soft as an earlobe and no longer sticky. Divide the dough into approximately two-thirds and one-third. Set the large ball of dough back in the bowl and cover it with a towel to rest while you prepare your “gold threads.”

3. Pat the smaller ball of dough into a cup-like shape on a heavily floured surface and pile the mashed sweet potatoes and brown sugar into the center. Use a pastry scraper in one hand to corral the dough while you knead it with the other. Add more flour as necessary until you have a soft dough that is no longer sticky.

4. Scrape your work surface clean and then smear it lightly with oil. Flatten the orange dough out into a thin rectangle, about 18 x 9 inches | 45 x 22 cm in size. Use a pastry brush to smear half of the melted butter over the dough. Fold the dough in thirds, so that you have a packet about 6 x 9 inches | 15 x 22 cm in size. Roll this up from one of the wide edges into a cylinder about 9 inches | 22 cm long. Use a sharp knife to cut the cylinder into thin strips, about ⅛ inch | 0.3 cm wide. Lay these strips out flat on a clean work surface, brush the rest of the melted butter on them, and let them rest while you prepare the bun wrappers.

5. Scrape your work surface clean and lightly flour it. Divide the white dough in half. Working on piece at a time, roll one piece out into a thin sheet, about 20 x 7 inches | 45 x 11 cm in size. Pick up a small bunch of the orange dough threads and pull on them gently so that they turn into strings. Don’t worry if some of them break—no one will notice later on. Lay these strings lengthwise down the center of the white sheet of dough. Repeat with the orange dough threads until you have used up half of them.

6. Fold one long end of the dough over the orange dough threads and then continue to roll it up and over the orange threads to form a long rope. Pinch the end of the dough into the cylinder to seal it. Then, lightly roll the dough with the palms of your hands to even it out, and then gently pull on it to make it around 10 inches| 25 cm long.

7. Trim off the ends and cut the rope into 12 even pieces. Roll each one of the little buns to return it to a nicely round shape (see photo on the upper right). Set these on the oiled paper in the steamer and steam the buns over high heat for about 10 minutes. Once the buns have cooked through, nudge each one loose from the paper while they are still hot. Repeat with the rest of the orange and white doughs until you have formed 24 small buns. These can be frozen at this point, refrigerated and then reheated, or eaten immediately. But for pure sensory overboard, go to Step 8.

Frying up the buns

8. To fry these buns, set a 1 quart | 1 liter pan over medium-high heat and fill it with about 2 inches | 5 cm oil. The oil will be ready when chopsticks inserted in the hot oil are immediately covered with bubbles. Slide in 4 or so buns. Do not overcrowd them, as they will fry up fast, and you don’t want them to stick to each other. Turn the buns over as they brown. When they have turned a golden brown all over, remove to a plate lined with paper. Serve immediately with a saucer filled with sweetened condensed milk.

How to make a Lazy Dragon

Happy news on the book front:

The New York Times featured All Under Heaven in its Cookbook Issue last week. Huzzah! To quote this lovely review by Sara Bonisteel, "'All Under Heaven' follows the illustrated tradition of books like Shizuo Tsuji’s 'Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art' and Julia Child’s 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking,' and therein lies its strength. Ms. Phillips’s simple line drawings cover everything from pulling noodles to removing pig hairs. It’s almost as good as watching over the chef’s shoulder." 

I mean... I'll stop swooning in a minute or two.

I am so looking forward to SF's LITQUAKE Festival this Sunday (10/9 from 11:00 to 5:30), where I'll be camped out with a table full of food and books. Be there or be square. Or be at home watching a ballgame. (#1 is the correct answer.) 

This last week the wonderful radio host R. Gallyot of KWMR in West Marin conducted a radio interview with me called "Some Dim Sum." This interviewer is someone who really loves the foods of China, and since we had only a half hour last Tuesday, we concentrated on "The Dim Sum Field Guide." He asked lots of great questions about the finer points of dining etiquette and we had such a good time that I am clamoring to go back. Actually, I'm pretty much ready to move to this lovely coastal area just north of the Golden Gate at the drop of the hat. Check out these photos of Point Reyes and West Marin if you want to be convinced.

And finally, I was in Bon Appétit! I got to natter there endlessly about my love for char siu ribs and delve into the reasons why this is pork candy. I waxed poetic over why I get all hot and bothered about those gooey, red, meaty, juicy, amazingly addictive slabs that lure me into Chinese delis. There's lots of info there on what goes into a perfect slab of ribs and explains to some degree my inability to resist the temptation. Just please don't get me started on Cantonese roast duck or braised chickens or just about anything else that hangs in a great deli window.

I am still convinced that I'm dreaming all of this.

*  *  *

Your basic Lazy Dragon

My mother-in-law made this beautifully named dish – and how can you ever come up with a better name than Lazy Dragon, I ask you – for her family when my husband was still a tyke, and he’s never forgotten it. It was a rare occasion when she made it (for she never really enjoyed hanging out in the kitchen), but her eldest son still thinks fondly on those couple of times when she fed the family well on her steamed breads. Even today he gets more than a bit misty-eyed at the thought of her steamed bread (mantou) made with powdered milk, for he would rush home from school whenever he knew it was on the menu.

Since these steamed breads mean so much to him, over the years I’ve figured out how to make pretty much everything that he used to munch on as a kid. A Lazy Dragon isn’t particularly hard if you’ve ever made, say, mantou or filled buns (baozi). In fact, it’s a million times easier than wrapping up a bunch of baozi since you really are just curling the filling inside of the dough like a jellyroll.  

I’m basically using ground pork and cabbage here, but you can use just about anything you’d like. Just count on making around 2 cups / 900 cc of filling. If you are a vegan, chopped mushrooms with onions would be delicious, as would any other vegetarian recipe for baozi. If you don’t want pork, ground turkey is fabulous. Beef would be great, too. You can also sub in spinach or bok choy for the traditional napa cabbage and then season it however you want. My mother-in-law also added cellophane noodles, which she would soak in cool water until they were soft and then chop into smallish pieces. Really, this is another one of my World Famous Templates, and you really can’t go too wrong.

Fluffy vs juicy layers

The only thing I’d suggest you keep an eye on when making a Lazy Dragon is ensuring that the sauce is thick, because soupiness will inevitably sog up the bread. So, simmer down the sauce toward the end to make the seasonings cling to the ingredients. I’d also caution against thickening the filling with things like cornstarch, since you already have that lovely bread working on your side, and you don’t need another layer of starch to gum things up.

Now, let’s get to the part where I talk about the eating end of the recipe. A Lazy Dragon is one very fun thing to serve, especially now when the weather is cooling down and you want to serve something warm and filling. Kids go bonkers over the very idea of dining on a dragon (use spinach juice if you really want to flip them out). Actually, if you were to serve this in honor of the Khaleesi to celebrate the next season of Game of Thrones, I wouldn’t hold that against you in the least. Names aside, Lazy Dragon is a wonderful variation on the baozi theme, not only because it requires a heck of a lot less work, but also because the dragon turns out to be much juicier and a whole lot more interesting that the usual stuffed bun (imho).

Lots of punchy flavors & textures

Why it’s not made all the time is beyond me. Here’s to changing all that...

Lazy dragon

Lănlóng 懶龍

North China

Serves 4 to 6

Steamed bread:

1 teaspoon active bread yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

10 tablespoons (½ cup + 2 tablespoons) / 150 ml warm water

1½ cups / 230 g Korean bread flour, plus extra for kneading (or, 1 cup / 120 g all-purpose flour mixed with ½ cup / 60 g pastry flour, plus extra all-purpose flour for kneading)

Toasted sesame oil, as needed 

Filling:

5 dried black mushrooms, either soaked overnight in cool water or soaked for at least 30 minutes in boiling water

2 tablespoons dried shrimp

Boiling water, as needed

Half a small head of napa cabbage (about 14 ounces / 400 g), chopped

½ teaspoon sea salt

2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

2 tablespoons finely chopped ginger

4 green onions, trimmed and chopped

8 ounces / 225 g ground pork or dark turkey meat

2 tablespoons / 30 ml mild rice wine

1 tablespoon / 15 ml regular soy sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

Freshly ground black pepper

Spray oil

Leave a clean edge

1. First make the bread wrapper: start at least 4 hours before you want to serve the Lazy Dragon. Place the water in a measuring cup and sprinkle on the yeast and sugar. Give the yeast time to wake up and foam, about 20 minutes; if it is not foamy by that time, the yeast is too old and you’ll have to buy a new batch.

2. Place the flour in a medium work bowl and then stir the foamy liquid into the flour to form a dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board and knead it until it is smooth and shiny, adding more flour if necessary. When it is as soft and supple as an earlobe, clean out the mixing bowl, dry it thoroughly, and rub a bit of sesame oil all over the inside. Place the dough in the bowl, turn the dough over a couple of times so that it is completely coated, cover it with plastic wrap, and let the dough rise either on the kitchen counter for a couple of hours or in the refrigerator for about 8 hours, or until the dough is at least double in size.

3. While the dough is rising, prepare the mushrooms and dried shrimp, if you haven't already done so, by covering them in separate bowls with boiling water. Soak them until the water is cool and the ingredients are supple. Drain the mushrooms, remove their stems, and finely dice them. Drain the shrimp, remove any discolored or hard areas, and mince them. Place the cabbage in a colander set in the sink and toss it with the salt.

4. Squeeze the liquid out of the cabbage. Set a wok over high heat and add the sesame oil when the wok is hot. Swirl the oil around and then add the ginger and onions. Toss them in the oil, and as soon as they smell great, add the cabbage. Continue to toss these over high heat, and as the cabbage starts to wilt, break up the raw meat and add it to the wok. Toss these together until the meat has lost most of its pink color. Then, drizzle the rice wine and soy sauce around the edge of the wok and sprinkle both the sugar and black pepper on top. At this point, you probably will have lots of liquid pooling up in the bottom of your wok, so scoot the ingredients up the sides of the wok so that the juices can heat up rapidly at the bottom and evaporate easily. As soon as the liquid has reduced to a tablespoon or so, toss the ingredients with this syrupy mixture. Take a taste and adjust the seasoning as needed. Remove the wok from the heat and let the filling cool down to at least body temperature.

Pinching the dragon

5. Now it’s time to roll out the dough. Turn the dough out onto a dusted board and roll it out into a rectangle about 12 inches high x 15 inches wide (30 cm high x 38 cm wide) –  it does not have to be exact. Spread the cooled filling over the dough, leaving around ½ inch / 1 cm space along both sides and the bottom, and about 1 inch / 2 cm clear at the top, as this will help keep the filling from spilling out as you roll up the dough. Starting with the edge nearest you, roll the dough up to form a long cylinder that’s not too tight, as you want to give the dough room to rise some more. When you get to the end, pinch the end of the dough into the cylinder to seal it and also pinch the two ends closed. Gently roll and shape the cylinder into a rope around 20 inches / 50 cm long. Spray a steamer basket with oil and, even better, line it with steamer paper or damp cheesecloth to help prevent the dough from sticking to the steamer. Arrange the rope in the steamer so that it looks like a snoozing dragon. Cover the steamer and let the dragon rest for around 20 minutes – if you need to wait longer than that before you cook it, place the steamer in the refrigerator so that the dough does not over-expand.

6. Fill the steamer’s pan with a couple inches of water and bring it to a full boil. Place the covered steamer over the pan so that it fits tightly. Reduce the heat to medium, or to maintain a steady boil. Steam the dragon for around 20 minutes, and then remove the steamer from the heat. Let the steamer rest for another 10 minutes or so to assist the dough in keeping its shape. Remove the dragon to a serving platter and slice into wedges. You can also freeze it, either uncooked or already cooked. Serve this as is, or with a chile sauce on the side.