【廚娘香Q秀】Daikon Puffs 蘿蔔絲酥餅／天蠶酥

This is a Cantonese dim sum pastry made with Chinese or Japanese white radish, or luobo 蘿蔔 in Chinese, daikon 大根 in Japanese. There are basically two variations of the dish, pan-fried (蘿蔔絲餅), or deep-fried (蘿蔔絲酥餅). The deep-fried variation can also be baked if you so desired. Traditionally they are just shaped into rounds when homemade but in the following videos we are seeing the deep-fried version with the fancy shaping sold commercially as 天蠶酥 or Divine Silkworm Pupa Pastries as they look like silkworm pupae. This type of pastry shaping is known as 直酥 or parallel layering (please see my post on Chinese Flaky Pastry) and they also happened to demonstrate the 大包酥 large-scale laminating method (in the first video) and 小包酥 small-scale laminating method (in the second video) respectively which are very useful if you want to learn how to wrap Chinese pastries using the 直酥 parallel layering technique.

【料理美食王】Taiwanese Mooncakes 蛋黃酥、滷肉綠豆椪

The Mid-Autumn Festival this year falls on September 10, 2022. What do you eat on this festival? Mooncakes, of course! The Cantonese mooncakes are very common commercially and much more difficult and also time consuming to make at home and you also need a mooncake mould to shape the mooncake. However the Taiwanese versions are much more easier to make as they are made with the Chinese flaky pastry. Below are two cooking videos from 2016 demonstrating the making of two traditional Taiwanese mooncakes, one sweet (red bean filling) and the other savoury (mung bean filling) by Taiwanese food writer/instructor, 蔡季芳 (阿芳老師).

【料理美食王】Spring Onion Pancakes 蔥油餅

Came across this video of making the savoury Spring Onion (Scallion) Pancakes from Taiwanese food writer/instructor, 蔡季芳 (阿芳老師). The episode was from the Taiwanese cooking show, 料理美食王, in 2016. However no English subtitles available for the video but very good demonstration of how to make the pancakes, so I’m posting it here for references…

【用點心做點心】Chai Tao Kueh / Lo Bak Go 菜頭粿／蘿蔔糕

Chai Tao Kueh 菜頭粿 (also spelled either as Chai Tau Kway, or Chye Tow Kway) is a type of steamed rice cakes from Southern China made with Chinese white radish, luo-bo 蘿蔔, or chai-tao 菜頭 in Hokkien dialet, or daikon in Japanese. In Cantonese it is called Lo Bak Go 蘿蔔糕, and their version includes preserved meat. There are also variants of the rice cake made with taro or pumpkin. Due to its Hokkien name of chai-tao 菜頭 which sounds like 彩頭 meaning rising fortune, it is a rice cake popularly served during Lunar New Year for good fortune, either as is in slices after steaming, or pan-fried after it has cooled down after steaming. It is also a very popular rice cake in Malaysia and Singapore, but usually served as a stir-fried street food in cubes with eggs and preserved Chinese white radish (chai-poh 菜脯). Below are two cooking videos from Taiwan demonstrating the Taiwanese-style and Cantonese-style making of this radish rice cake.

【廚娘香Q秀】Steamed Meat Buns 鮮肉包

Just saw this video yesterday about the Chinese Steamed Bao 包 or Baozi 包子 (also spelt as Pau in Malaysia or Singapore) and it has quite a detailed explanation of how to wrap the buns into goldfish-mouth 金魚嘴 shape. This style of wrapping the dough is used for raw meat filling as the little opening (the goldfish mouth) on top of the bun allows the steam to penetrate the inside of the bun to ensure proper cooking of the filling. Keeping the video here for future references.

【飲食男女】Deconstruction of 5 Dim Sum Dishes 五款香港點心大解構

Just saw this Cantonese documentary of the 5 most popular dim sum dishes in Hong Kong last night. Very insightful unravelling the secrets of the making of these dishes. I especially love how they show us the techniques of how the dim sum masters wrap these little morsels of delight, and also give us some fantastic details of the pastries and fillings! Even though the documentary is in Cantonese, there is Chinese subtitles, and even if you don’t read Chinese or understand Cantonese, watching the techniques of making these dim sum dishes is still very rewarding. In fact I finally found out the reason, after so many years, of why I got two different colour tones on my Ma Lai Koh!

【用點心做點心】Shrimp Shumai 蝦仁燒賣

A Dimsum favourite, flower-pot dumplings, or shumai in Cantonese… Quite difficult to wrap by beginners, but this video shows you how to wrap up into flower-pot shape…

【廚娘香Q秀】Cantonese Steamed Sponge Cake 馬拉糕／馬來糕

This is the modern-style Cantonese Sponge Cake.

【廚娘香Q秀】Puppy Mantou 狗狗旺旺來饅頭

Creative Ways with Dumplings & Cookies 創意花樣餃子包法

This is a video demonstrating some creative ways to wrap Chinese dumplings and also making fancy cookie shapes.