Taro horseshoe buns

One of the homiest, most comforting flavors around has to be that of taro. If you have never enjoyed this lovely tropical root, let me say that you should stop right here, head for an Asian store, buy some taro, and prepare to fall in love.

There is a warmth to taro that you just don’t find in other starchy vegetables. Yes, potatoes are nice in all their permutations, but they are, when you get right down to it, there is not an immense amount of flavor or texture. Sweet potatoes—especially delectable Garnets—are fabulous, but in a totally different way from taro. They are moist and honeyed, and when cooked the Shaanxi way, will ooze out caramel like nobody’s business.

Taro, though, has something else going on. Slightly fibrous, it cooks into a potato-like mass that smells slightly of vanilla and nuts (at least to my nose). My house has the most wonderful aromas whenever I cook with it, summoning my husband downstairs in an anticipatory trot to find out what’s on today’s menu.

Taro with my mighty peeler

Which brings us to today’s menu: baked taro buns. Nobody does baked buns like the Taiwanese. There is a lovely pan-Pacific carnival involved here, a perfect marriage between East and West. Like in those delicious green onion buns from two weeks ago, this is basically a variation on Parker House rolls, for they are rich and yeasty, with eggs and oil in the dough.

But what makes these so quintessentially Chinese are the taro filling and the spectacular shapes. I have, naturally, made these less sweet than what is traditional—you can of course make them as sweet as you want. I’ve opted instead for just a smidgen of white sugar in order to keep the pale lavender hue and a hunk of butter that is there just to keep things properly luscious. And since we have butter in the filling, I also used butter in the dough so that we have some happy harmony in each bite. Do note that I have not colored the taro, as way too many commercial bakeries do. (To be honest, I’m pretty sure that powdered mixes are involved, which sneaks in nasty old vanillin and a plethora of chemicals.) If you want, you can give this a violent violet hue. I’m not judging. Much.

Lavender-specked slices

Also note that the dough here is slightly less sweet than with those used for savory fillings. This will give you the proper juxtaposition between flavors so that you’re not overwhelmed with sugar. I’ve sanded them with coarse sugar, too, which is another reason to dial down the sweetness where you can.

As for the shapes, aren’t they beautiful? They look impossibly hard to make, but in fact are incredibly easy once you do a couple in order to get the knack down. Just fill a piece of dough as if you were making baozi, flatten it, and then slash it before rolling it up. How hard is that?

Fresh from the steamer

Like all of these buns I’m going to be talking about in the near future (I’ve been on a bit of a bun binge lately), these freeze well and heat up deliciously. Get a nice, crisp edge on them when you do that, and they might even be better than fresh out of the oven.

Taiwanese taro horseshoe buns

Yùní miànbāo 芋泥麵包

Taiwan

Makes 16 large buns

Filling:

Around 1½ pounds | 700 g taro

½ cup | 115 g sugar

¼ cup | 55 g | ½ stick unsalted butter, softened

3 tablespoons cream or milk

½ teaspoon sea salt

Dough:

1½ cups | 300 ml warm water

Filling the dough

½ cup | 50 g powdered milk (nonfat or regular)

1 tablespoon bread yeast

2 tablespoons sugar

1 large egg, lightly beaten

4 cups | 600 g Chinese flour, plus about 1 cup | 150 g more for kneading

1½ teaspoons sea salt

¼ cup | 55 g | ½ stick unsalted butter, softened

Toppings:

1 large egg, lightly beaten, mixed with 1 teaspoon water

¼ cup sanding sugar

1. First make the filling: Wear kitchen or latex gloves when working with raw taro unless you are sure you’re not allergic to it. Remove the skin with a potato peeler, rinse the taro, and cut it lengthwise into quarters. Then cut it into ½ inch | 1 cm slices. Steam the taro for 15 – 20 minutes, or until it can be easily flaked with a fork.

2. Mash the taro (make it as coarse or fine as you like), either by placing it in a food processor fitted with a metal blade, or in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, or by hand.  Add the sugar, butter, cream or milk, and salt, and mix thoroughly; if you’re using a food processor or stand mixer, you can beat it until it is light and fluffy. Taste and adjust the seasoning. If you want to add food coloring, now is the time. Divide the filling into 16 even pieces.

A baozi shape

3. Now make the dough: Mix the warm water, powdered milk, yeast, and sugar together in your food processor, stand mixer bowl, or a large work bowl. (BTW, you don’t need to wash out the bowl before you do this.) Give the yeast time to wake up and become very foamy, which should take around 20 to 30 minutes. If you don’t get a good head of foam, buy fresh yeast and start over.

4. Stir the egg, flour, salt, and oil into the yeast mixture to form a soft dough. If you’re using a stand mixer, use the hook attachment; use a metal blade for the food processor, of it you’re doing this by hand, flour a smooth work surface and dump the dough out on top. Quickly knead the dough, adding more flour as necessary to keep it from sticking, until it is smooth and bouncy. Roll the dough into a ball and lightly flour it. Cover the dough with a clean tea towel, stick the bowl over the top to help keep the dough moist, and wait until the dough has risen to at least twice its original size, which will take about an hour.

Slash the dough

5. Cut the dough into 16 even pieces. Toss them with flour and cover with a dry tea towel to keep them from drying out. Cover 2 baking sheets with either Silpat or parchment paper. Heat a convection oven to 350°F | 175°C (375°F | 190°C for a regular oven) and set 1 rack near the center.

6. Working on one piece at a time, and working on a lightly floured surface, roll a piece into a disc about 5 inches| 13 cm in diameter. Place one ball of filling in the center and bring up the edges around it to seal the filling well. Gently flatten the ball with the heel of your hand. Roll it out into a rectangular-ish shape about 8 x 4 inches | 20 x 10 cm.

7. Flip it over so the smooth side is on top, and then slash it horizontally about every ½ inch | 1 cm so that you just cut through the top layer, but not all the way through the dough. Flip it back over. Starting at the long edge, loosely roll the dough up so that the cuts are on the outside. Gently shape the bun into a horseshoe and use a pastry scraper to lift the bun onto  a prepared baking sheet. You should be able to fit 8 of these buns on each sheet, but be sure to leave around 1 inch | 2 cm between them on all sides, as they will rise. Repeat this step with 7 more balls of dough in order to fill up the sheet.

Roll it up

8. Brush the egg wash all over each of the twists, and then sprinkle them generously with the sanding sugar. Set the pan in the center of the oven and bake for about 20 minutes, or until the buns are a lovely golden brown. Repeat Steps 6 and 7 for the remaining 8 pieces of dough while the first batch is cooking.

Tips

Use the large taro for this sort of filling, since it is very flavorful and starchy. Baby taro bulblets are much too moist and vegetal for this.

Some taro will be larger than footballs, and some will be cut into chunks. It doesn’t matter. Feel them all over and attempt to locate any soft spots, which indicates bruising and spoilage. Peel them with a heavy-duty potato or sugar cane peeler, remove any discolored or soft spots, and trim off the cut ends.

Love

Prep more taro than you can use, as it will come in very handy once you become a taro addict. Simply place the cut-up slices in freezer bags and freeze. Use them before there’s a frost buildup, but otherwise these are ready to go when you are.

Reheat the buns before you eat them, if they’ve been refrigerated or frozen. Really try to aim for a crispy exterior, as this will magnify your eating pleasure immeasurably.

Video of the roll-making process

A creamy, cold weather delight from South China

A wonderful surprise was in store for me a few evenings ago when I finally had time to catch up on my favorite podcasts, and lo and behold, there was All Under Heaven being featured and loved and totally understood. 

To top it off, I only discovered this spectacular review a month after it had been aired! (I still need to figure out how to Google myself without being weirded out by all the people who share my name but are simply the dearly departed or the recently arrested. Mine is one popular name, it turns out.) 

Anyway, a long time favorite cookbook reviewer, T. Susan Chang, started a new podcast last month called The Level Teaspoon, and my two books are featured in the very first episode! (The praise starts at the 5:00 mark, if you're in a hurry.) Subscribe to this free podcast while you're at it - you'll be doing yourself a favor if you love cookbooks as much as I do.

And you don't get to consider your bucket list fulfilled as a cookbook writer if you haven't yet been given the seal of approval by the esteemed cookbook site, Leite's Culinaria. Well, that just happened to yours truly, and All Under Heaven somehow made it to the top of their list of "Best Cookbooks September 2016." Call me stunned, thrilled, happy... All I know is that their wonderful reviewer, Melissa Maedgen, completely comprehended what I was trying to do, made a batch of recipes that worked for her (hallelujah!), and had all sorts of nice things to say. Thank you, Melissa!

The Wall Street Journal also quoted me this last Saturday in the well written and oh-so-timely article "Chinese Food in New Translations," which is celebrating the thoughtful and exciting exhibition "Sweet Sour Bitter Spicy" exhibit at the Museum of Chinese in America. The author of this article, Jamie Feldmar, studied in China, so her love for the foods of my adopted country echo throughout this article. Plus, she's a heck of a lot of fun to talk with when you're barreling on a train from New York to DC. 

Finally, you can find me jabbering away about dim sum this week with Evan Kleiman on her tasty and knowledgeable podcast "Good Food," which is on the public radio station KCRW out of Los Angeles. Now that is one GREAT interviewer. I was told I'd sound better than I ever had before, and since that has been proved to be true, I must owe it all to Evan and her talent crew. Thanks, Evan!

* * *

The autumnal equinox has passed and the northern half of the world is becoming chillier. And that’s just the way I like it, because it means I get to dine on the warming comfort foods of China. This country has a marvelous battalion of soups, stews, and braises that are specifically designed to warm your toes and make even the crankiest diner happy. And this is one of them. In fact, this dish is downright luxurious.

Traditionally, this cured duck casserole is just pieces of the cured bird simmered with taro and a bit of ginger. And it’s good that way, but not the kind of thing that keeps me up at night with anticipation. Some recipes suggest adding coconut milk, and that is what got my mind really revving, since coconut milk always equals comfort food in my book. It’s sort of like adding heavy cream or a rich béchamel sauce to a dish, but with a delightful tropical twist.

I then went a bit nuts and took this dish many steps further down the road to hedonism: There’s rice wine in there to vibrate against the cured duck, the green onions and ginger are toasted to make them nothing less than absolutely mellow, I fry the duck after simmering it to give the skin a lot more interest and flavor, and the tangle of golden ginger is reserved to act as a chewy foil for all the soft textures underneath it.

Fuzzy baby taro

But I also took a cue from Macau’s great chicken dishes and broiled the top of the braise, which supplies yet another layer of texture, since a skin forms on the top of this rich coconut sauce and turns a rather boring looking dish into something that is quite beautiful. Finally, it all got lavishly decorated with garnishes that turn this dish into a celebration.

Do note that the ratio of taro to duck is huge. That’s because the duck acts more as a seasoning here than as a regular meat. When it’s cured like this, the bird becomes intensely flavored – a lot like prosciutto – which then turns around and seasons everything in its path. The duck is also very salty, and that’s the reason why it needs that initial hot bath to wash off a good part of the cure and also plump up the flesh a bit.

You can find cured duck (làyā 臘鴨) in most Chinese grocery stores all year around, but it will be best from autumn through spring, when the turnover is much faster. Try to find ducks that are grown and cured in the States, rather than China. Since the duck is completely cured, the unopened packages will keep forever in the refrigerator.

Use whatever kind of taro you like and is available. Mature taro – which looks a bit like a football and is very heavy and starchy – will make the casserole creamier and have more of a tropical flavor. Young taro are more vegetal and juicier, and in their own way are just as fine here. So, go with what you like.

Those lovely, creamy insides

I suggest you get a good-sized amount of taro because you will probably be trimming off a good portion of the flesh in addition to the skin, since things like bruises will have to be cut away. When it comes to young taro, trim off anything that is not creamy white, and keep only the lavender parts of more mature taro. (Do note that some varieties of mature taro will come in different colors – if you get a particularly pale or deep-colored root, you will be able to easily figure out what parts are good and what parts should be 86’d.)

To select taro, first eyeball them. They should look plump all over. When you see shrinking around the base, that means they have been hanging around too long and will be dry, which in turn means that they will take forever to cook. Avoid any with mushy spots, as this indicates rot. They are quite hairy, so you will have to fondle them in the vegetable bin – try not to make a scene while doing this or frighten the children.

Lots of times the mature taro will be cut in half or pieces and wrapped in plastic. There’s nothing essentially wrong with these, but do realize that they probably had their rotted parts trimmed off and so should be checked over very carefully for signs of further damage or excessive age.

Keep your taro dry and chilled and wrapped up in a bag with a paper towel, for this will help prevent them from sprouting or decaying. Wear kitchen gloves when you start to peel them if you are allergic to their juices. (Mature taro is much more irritating to the skin than immature ones, for some reason.) 

Fry the duck & onions

Use a potato peeler to remove the skins and then carve off any less than perfect parts. They don’t have to be soaked in water like potatoes, and if you do lots at one time (highly recommended if you are a taro fanatic like me), freeze them in a single layer and then store them in a freezer bag; they do not have to be defrosted first for most dishes.

Cured duck and coconut casserole with taro

Yézhī lìyù làyā bào  椰汁荔芋臘鴨煲

Southern Guangxi and Guangdong

Serves 4

1 Cantonese-style cured duck leg

Boiling water, as needed

Around 1½ pounds / 700 g baby or mature taro

¼ cup / 60 ml toasted sesame oil

¼ cup / 30 g thinly julienned ginger

4 green onions, trimmed and cut into fourths

¼ cup / 30 ml mild rice wine (mijiu)

1 (13.5 ounce / 400 g) can whole fat coconut milk

Sea salt to taste

1 green onion, trimmed and finely shredded

¼ cup / 30 g unsweetened grated coconut, toasted

1. This is great the same day that you make it, but gets even better with a day or two of rest in the fridge. Use a heavy cleaver to whack the leg into pieces that are around 1 inch / 2 cm wide all around. Place them in a saucepan, cover with water, and bring the pan to a boil over high heat. Lower the heat to a simmer and cook for about 5 minutes to remove the extra salt. Drain the duck well in a colander set in the sink, and then pat it dry with a paper towel.

2. Peel the taro, and if you are using mature taro, be sure to wear gloves if you are allergic its raw juices. Rinse the peeled taro and cut the baby ones in half or quarters, while the mature taro should be shaped into cubes that are also around 1 inch / 2 cm all around.

Chewy fried ginger!

3. Set a wok over medium-high heat and pour in the sesame oil. Sprinkle in the julienned ginger and stir the ginger constantly to toast it to a golden brown, adjusting the heat as necessary. Remove the ginger to a small work bowl. Return the oil to high heat and slide in the duck and green onions. Fry them all over so that they too are a golden brown. Pour in the rice wine, coconut milk, and a can full of boiling water, and then add the taro. Bring the liquid to a boil and then reduce the heat to maintain a bare simmer. Cook the duck uncovered until the taro is creamy, which may take from 15 to 30 minutes, depending upon the quality and age of the taro. Taste and adjust the seasoning with a bit more salt, if needed. At this point the sauce should have the consistency of heavy cream, so reduce it if necessary. The dish may be prepared ahead of time up to this point and refrigerated. Heat the dish through again before serving, of course.

4. Turn on your broiler. Scrape everything into a heatproof 4 cup / 1 liter casserole. Set it about 2 inches / 5 cm from the broiler. Keep a close eye on the dish, and remove it as soon as the top is covered with golden leopard spots. To serve, sprinkle on the green onions and then the coconut flakes and fried ginger. This is great with steamed rice of any kind plus a green vegetable stir-fried with little more than garlic and salt.

Heavenly deli leftovers

If your idea of a good time is to eat in a Cantonese deli, join the club. I love few things as much as a place with birds and pig parts hanging in the window, and my favorite restaurants include a handful of places that know how to make the perfect roast duck, char siu (sweet Cantonese pork), and siu yuk, or roast pork (called shaorou in Mandarin). The problem is that I always order too much, and so I usually haul lots of leftovers home. 

Roast duck and char siu don’t need much work to make them shine again the next day (just heat them up on a broiler tray in the oven at 350°F), but siu yuk’s skin will soften and the meat will congeal a bit, so I’ve come up with a couple of strategies to enjoy them in whole new ways. 

Taro plus siu yuk

One of them is this, a riff on a traditional Hakka treat that usually calls for fresh pork belly. Since siu yuk is made with the whole side of a pig, it’s a perfect fit, and easy to boot.

Cantonese roast pork with taro

Yùtóu shāoròu 芋頭燒肉

Guangdong

Serves 4 to 6

Taro and pork:

1 pound (more or less) mature taro

1 cup frying oil (used all right if it smells fresh)

8 ounces (or so) siu yuk

Slice the taro

Sauce:

¼ cup thinly sliced fresh ginger

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 green onions, trimmed and chopped

½ cup plus 2 tablespoons mild rice wine

2 cubes fermented bean curd (doufuru; see Tip)

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon five-spice powder

1 cup boiling water, divided

Chopped cilantro for garnish, optional

1. If you are allergic to raw taro, wear gloves while working with it. (I do.) Use a potato peeler to remove the skin, trim off any damaged areas, and rinse the taro before patting it very dry with a paper towel. Slice the taro into pieces that are about an inch wide all around. Pour the wok into a wok, set it over high heat, and add about half of the taro to the oil when it starts to shimmer. Reduce the heat to medium and stir the taro occasionally as it fries. When one side is hard and even puffs up a little, turn that piece over. Remove the taro with a Chinese spider and chopsticks, shaking off most of the oil as you go, and place it in a clean work bowl. If your deli has not cut up the siu yuk for you, slice it into pieces around the same size as the taro; large bones can be cut out and reserved for something else (see next week's recipe!). Have a wide, heatproof, rimmed plate ready. Arrange the taro and pork in an overlapping pattern (pork-taro-pork-taro) in the plate, and if you have extra taro, slip it in between some other slices. Place any awkward-looking pieces in the center of the dish and cover them with prettier ones.

Fried taro slices

2. Next, make the sauce: Drain out all but 1 tablespoon of the oil in your wok and place it over high heat. Add the ginger, garlic, and green onion to the hot oil and stir-fry them for a few seconds to release their fragrance. Stir in the rice wine, fermented bean curd, sugar, five-spice, and ½ cup boiling water. Mash the bean curd so that it dissolves well and bring the sauce to a boil. Pour this over the pork and taro.

3. Place the pork and taro in a steamer and steam this for 1½ hours, adding more water to the steamer as needed — this dish can be made ahead of time up to this point, cooled, and refrigerated. Pour the extra ½ cup of boiling water into the pork dish and steam it for another 30 minutes. The taro should be soft but not falling apart at this point. Taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning as needed. Sprinkle with chopped cilantro, if you like. Serve hot.

Cantonese-style doufuru

Tip

I like to use Cantonese-style doufuru here. It's a bit funkier, not at all sweet, and adds a nice edge to the seasoning. I also prefer it when there are flecks of chili in the sauce, as this adds just a suggestion of heat to this dish. Taiwan's Hwang Ryh Shiang 黃日香 brand is the one I usually get, as it is very creamy and has good balance. It comes from Daxi 大溪, a village that lies not too far from Taipei, and for some reason the doufuru from that place is almost always spectacular.