2008-08-04 - 11:56 p.m.
Chinese Sandwiches
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Four more days until the Olympics. I'm looking forwards to women's volleyball and synchronized swimming more than I should proudly admit. But, asides from that, I'm tired of the Olympics already and assume that everyone else is too. (Have fun in 2010 Vancouver-livers!)
Anywas, to celebrate the Olympics - and also because there haven't been any more earthquakes and I have nothing else to jamboree - here's a recipe for Chinese sandwiches. By which I mean, steamed buns.
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- 1 package yeast
- 1/2 cup warm milk
- 1/2 cup warm water
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- about 3 cups of flour
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Add the sugar, the salt and the yeast to milk and the water. Stir in flour until it's hard to stir and then start kneading in flour. Keep kneading in more flour until the dough ball is no longer sticky. That means that you've added enough flour.
Cover the dough ball with plastic wrap. (Or, my new preferred method, put it in a grocery bag and tie up the top.) Leave the dough ball alone and let it rise for 30 to 40 minutes.
Divide the dough ball up into eight or ten little dough balls. Fill each dough ball with something tasty (Footnote One), cover them with a damp cloth and let them rise again, this time for about an hour. (Footnote Two)
Steam the buns for eight to ten minutes. The buns won't change color, but the tops will become kind of sticky while they're cooking and then turn not sticky again when they're done.(Footnote Three)
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Footnote One: Trying to make actual Chinese-style Chinese sandwiches was hard. But both curry and pizza Chinese sandwiches turned out really good on the first try and I recommend these flavors.
Footnote Two: Chinese sandwiches get a lot bigger during this time. So much bigger that I thought I'd messed up the first time I made them. Don't be surprised if your sandwiches double in size during this time.
Footnote Three: The buns become harder as they cool down, but they're really soft while they're still warm. So, unless you're steaming all of them at once, it's going to be hard to move them around between batches unless you put each bun on its own little piece of foil or wax paper. Also, I don't have a steamer either. I've been making aluminum foil coils in the bottom of my biggest pot, pouring some water in, and making kind of an aluminum foil plate on top of that. I think that it works well. But, then again, I can't compare that to using a proper steamer...
