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.

Northern Chinese don't roast chickens... or do they?

Roasted meats are rarely found in Chinese homes mainly because ovens have traditionally been reserved for restaurants. Be that as it may, they do exist, and sometimes they exude a startling originality. 

I immediately think of Cantonese cooking whenever roasted Chinese things are mentioned, but once in a while there are surprises along the way, as today's dish from Shandong in northern China: this is one of the “three roasted dishes of Qingdao,” the other two featuring fish and meaty pork ribs.

It was created by the local famed chef Pan Xiaoliang in the early years of the last century. His original recipe called for a young rooster to be marinated in salt, rice wine, and soy sauce before being quickly fried in very hot oil. The bird was then roasted with such things as green onions, ginger, and Sichuan peppercorns and then served in its juices. You can see how Shanghai finagled its way into this dish from Shandong’s coastal area, the green onion oil giving away its secrets with an almost giddy glee.

A more modern interpretation eliminates the frying, and as you’ll see, that dip in the oil is truly unnecessary because the skin crisps up beautifully in the oven while the meat stays moist and flavorful. A nest of lettuce leaves protects the chicken from drying out, and it also cooks down into a wonderful accompaniment after an hour in a very hot oven.

Spatchcocked & ready to go

That very hot oven is one of the secrets here. Start your oven as soon as you begin working on this dish, as it needs to get as hot as possible, usually 550°F on most American ovens. The super-hot air seals the juices in by shrinking and crisping the skin, and then a merely very hot oven (425°F) finishes the job.

You’ll notice that the chicken is split up the back and laid flat on top of the lettuce. This cuts way down on the cooking time since there’s no cool cavity to deal with. This is called spatchcocking or butterflying a chicken. You can, if you like, completely remove the backbone, but I’m a sucker for both the back and the tail, so I leave it in and just cut down one side of the spine.

Master this recipe – both the hot, hot oven and the spatchcocking – and you’ll soon be making variations on it in no time.

Crispy chicken roasted on lettuce 
Kǎo xiǎochújī 烤小雛雞 
Shandong

Serves 4 to 6 as an entree 

Fried green onions add flavor

½ cup Green Onion Oil, with some of the crispy green onions

1 whole fryer (about 3½ pounds)

Spray oil

1 small head or half a large head of romaine lettuce

8 thin slices fresh ginger, lightly mashed with the back of a cleaver

¼ cup Shaoxing rice wine

1 teaspoon ground toasted Sichuan peppercorns

¼ cup filtered water

¼ cup regular soy sauce

1. If you don’t have Green Onion Oil on hand, fry the onions in oil as directed in that recipe while you are working on the chicken. Place a rack in the lower third of your oven and heat it to 550°.

2. Rinse the chicken, pat it dry, and pull out any pinfeathers you see. Place the chicken on its breast and use a sharp cleaver to cut down one side of the spine to split it open. (If you want, you can cut out the spine and save it for stock.) Clean out the inside of the chicken and remove any extra fat. Turn the chicken over and tuck the wings underneath themselves.

Smashed ginger slices

3. Spray a 10- to 12-inch wide ovenproof dish with oil. Rinse the lettuce, shake the leaves dry, and lay them whole on the bottom of the dish, breaking a few as necessary so that the entire bottom of the dish is covered. Scatter the ginger over the lettuce. Place the chicken in the dish skin-side down and rub it with some of the rice wine and Sichuan peppercorns. Flip it over and lightly rub the rest of the rice wine and Sichuan peppercorns into the skin. Pour the water and  green onion oil into the dish from the side so that they don’t wash off the peppercorns. Then, pour the soy sauce all over the chicken, trying to hit as much of the skin as possible; the onions will turn black if left on top of the chicken (which is quite beautiful, so there is a trade off), so nudge them into crevasses, if possible. Place the dish on a baking sheet and place the chicken in the oven.

4. Lower the heat (without opening the door) to 425°F and continue to roast the bird for another 40 to 50 minutes, or until the skin is browned and crispy and the juices run clear when the thigh is pierced deeply with a knife. Remove the chicken from the oven and let it rest for about 10 minutes. Cut up the chicken as desired and serve it with the roasted lettuce and the juices. All that is needed is hot steamed rice or steamed buns.