s h i n s h i n e

Tips on Steamed Buns & Cute Animal Shaped Steamed Buns

Like clockwork, I return to making steamed buns when it gets cold. I thought I'd lose interest by now, but steamed buns have consumed my winter once again with so many frigid, snowy days. Some arts and crafts time with pillowy, warm buns to snack on at the end is not a bad way to spend time at home.

I was into adding natural colors to the buns in previous years, but I explored the world of animal-shaped/animal face buns this year. I always try to add colors from natural ingredients, so it was fun to play with different ingredients and find right colors for certain animal features. Panda's eyes? A mix of hot chocolate powder and crushed black sesame seeds. 

This is rather a short list of my notes along the way of making steamed buns this year. I'm afraid that the month of February will pass by before I know it. I'm already getting distracted by spring and summer eats for class menus and I should at least jot down some of this year's steamed buns progress. 

So here are a few...

* I still use the same basic dough recipe I shared before (Steamed Buns with Nutella Pumpkin Filling, Steamed Buns with Kimchi and Turkey Filling). I received a comment a while ago that the ratio of flour to water may be off, so I tried it several times (obviously...) but I haven't seen much change. Depending on the weather, sometimes I add a bit more flour and other times a bit more water, but the recipe is a good starting point. Ultimately, we're trying to achieve a play-dough consistency - soft, smooth and stretchy dough that doesn't stick to your hands.

* I divide the dough into 16 pieces (rather than 8 from the recipe) to make them mini sized buns. If you take the time to do this, it's a good dish to bring (along with the steamer) to a potluck party. You can steam for only a couple of minutes to reheat the buns on top of a pot with boiling water. They are definitely cute whether you decorate them or not, and people tend to eat more because the size is... non-threatening?

* In general, natural powders are easy to add for colors without altering the recipe. The color in the dough will look lighter and will come out stronger after steaming.

* Turmeric adds a beautiful hue of bright yellow to the bun itself. But use it sparingly. I'd say about 1/4 teaspoon for the recipe amount of 1 1/2 cups flour. It will have a slight fragrance of turmeric.

* I added strawberry powder to make the pink nose and ears of the piggy buns. Set aside 2 tablespoons of the mix of dry ingredients and mix with 1/4 teaspoon of strawberry powder, which is enough for noses and ears for the recipe (as pictured above). I'd even add less strawberry powder to get a lighter pink. Add a spoonful of water to bring it to a smooth, pink dough. On a side note, when I added strawberry powder to color the whole buns, the color came out rather darkish, dull pink. I'll stick to the piggy nose and ears for the use of strawberry powder.

* For the dark brown/black dough for panda eyes and ears, it's a mix of flour, black sesame seeds and hot chocolate powder dissolved in hot water. Knead to make it a smooth dough. The color will be light brown, but it will come out darker after steaming.

* The dark dough from the previous point is also good for dotting eyes on other animal face buns. Otherwise, I use black sesame seeds for eyes. Yes, they are tiny.

* When you feel like you need just a tad more water to the dough, just wet your hand and knead the dough instead of adding water directly to the dough. Often, that's enough moisture to finish the dough.

In addition to playing around with steamed buns on my own, I've been teaching steamed buns classes every winter. While I'm done with public classes, I have a couple of private classes booked through March. If you're interested in setting up a private class with a group of friends, you can contact me directly with any questions or request a class from this link.

Stay warm!

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KOREAN WORDS
깨    (ggae)    sesame seed(s)
꿀    (ggool)  honey
꽃    (ggot)    flower

Rolled Dumplings (굴림만두, Gullim Mandoo)

Happy New Year once again!

I feel like I just took the Christmas tree out and lights down, but the Lunar New Year is only 2 days away now. I can tell myself that 2015 so far has only been a practice for the real start, which is of course, February 19th.

Even without the excuse of celebrating the Lunar New Year, one of the dishes that I can eat anytime of the day or year is dumplings of all kinds. This particular one is gullim mandoo (also spelled as mandu), in which the dumpling filling is rolled around in potato starch instead of being wrapped in dumpling skins. The thin coating of starch doesn't show itself when dumplings first come out of boiling water. They look like meatballs or 'naked dumplings' which is another name for it in English. As they cool down, you will see the translucent starch coating appear along with its soft-chewy texture.

Here I used my go-to dumpling filling with a mix of ground beef and pork along with tofu and sweet pototo glass noodles (당면 dang myeon). Tofu and dangmyeon keep the filling moist and soft in Korean dumplings.  Dangmyeon, with its stickiness, also helps to keep the filling together.

It is easy to make and fun to eat especially on a cold wintry day like this. Maybe a project for the Lunar New Year Day or for this weekend? Enjoy!

 
 

ROLLED DUMPLINGS (굴림만두) GULLIM MANDOO
Yield - about 40 dumplings

INGREDIENTS:
Beef and Pork Filling
1/2 cup dangmyeon (당면 glass noodles made with sweet potato starch)
1/2 block (7 oz.) extra firm or firm tofu
1/2 cup ground beef
1/2 cup ground pork
1/2 cup garlic chive, trimmed and finely chopped (can substitute with equal amount of scallion)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon ginger, peeled and grated
2 cloves garlic, peeled and grated
1/2 teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground
1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon plus 1/2 cup potato starch

Simple Dipping Sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (고추가루 gochu garu)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Soak dangmyeon (당면 glass noodles made with sweet potato starch) in enough lukewarm water to cover the noodles. When it's soft enough to bend, cook in boiling water until soft. Rinse in cold water, drain and finely chop. Set aside.

2. Squeeze out excess water from tofu and crumble it to pieces.

3. Place chopped dangmyeon (당면), crumbled tofu, ground beef, ground pork, garlic chive, soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, ginger, garlic, black pepper, salt and 1 tablespoon of potato starch in a bowl. Mix to combine completely. Cover with plastic and rest for 30 minutes to overnight in the refrigerator.

4. Spread 1/2 cup of potato starch on a baking sheet. Scoop out 1-inch balls with a small cookie scoop (or use hands or spoons) from the filling and place them on the baking sheet covered with potato starch. You should get about 40 meat balls.  Roll the balls on starch and reshape as necessary. After the first rolling, you will see that the white starch gets quickly absorbed into the meat balls. After rolling the balls on starch 2~3 times, the starch coating should stay for a while.

5. Bring water to a boil in a pot over high heat. Drop the dumplings gently into water. The dumplings may sink at first then float to the top as water is heated and dumplings are cooked. Once they float to the top, cook for another 5 minutes to ensure that raw meat is completely cooked.

6. In the meantime, make a dipping sauce by combining soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil and red pepper flakes.

7. Remove dumplings from boiling water. Let cool for 5 minutes and serve warm with the dipping sauce.

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KOREAN WORDS
그리다    (geu ri da)    to draw
그립다    (geu rip da)  to miss, to long for

Homemade Pepero/Pocky - Chocolate Dipped Breadsticks

Korean Pepero or Japanese Pocky sticks are chocolate-covered thin cookie sticks that can be easily made at home, especially if you use store-bought breadsticks. The only part you have to worry about is dipping breadsticks in melted chocolate and rolling in... whatever you want. The end results are giant (relatively speaking), elaborate Pepero sticks that disappear in no time. 

This is rather a how-to guide with a few tips and ideas rather than an exact recipe. Depending on the breadsticks used and types of sprinkles, varied amounts of ingredients will be required. However, as you can see from the picture above, only a couple of ingredients are all you need for this simple version of homemade Pepero.

I dipped some in semi-sweet chocolate and rolled them in chocolate sprinkles. I also rolled white chocolate-covered breadsticks in crushed almond slices and coconut flakes. It is trickier to work with white chocolate because it is thicker and hardens faster when it's melted, so I had to spread white chocolate on breadsticks with a pastry spatula (rather than dipping). It also means you may have to reheat white chocolate a couple of times in the middle of the project. While it is more cumbersome to use white chocolate, it certainly takes on different colors better. Stir in a tiny spoonful green tea powder for a green color base to roll in any sprinkles or leave it as is.

Different sprinkles on the chocolate-covered breadsticks make these homemade Pepero look and taste fancy, but they also hide the untempered look of chocolate which can appear dull.  It's a great feeling when I find shortcuts to cover up my laziness but end up with giant Pepero sticks donned with all kinds of sprinkles.

For those of you who are not familiar, November 11th is known as Pepero Day in Korea. Do you see a similarity in the shape of Pepero and 11/11? Exchanging a variety of Pepero on this highly commercialized non-holiday has become very popular. Maybe I should've waited until November for this post, but why wait when there is another highly commercialized chocolate non-holiday right around the corner? We can enjoy homemade Pepero all year round starting now.

HOMEMADE PEPERO/POCKY
Yield - 40 sticks

INGREDIENTS:
20 plain, thin breadsticks (half of a packet)
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup chocolate sprinkles
1 cup white chocolate sprinkles
Other sprinkles of your choice such as fine coconut flakes and chopped almond slices

DIRECTION:
1. Cut breadsticks in half, preferably with a serrated knife. I cut them in half so that they are about 6-inch in length.

2. Fill a small saucepan with water 1/3 way up.  Heat water over low heat and when water comes to steaming hot, place a metal bowl filled with chocolate chips on top of the saucepan. Let chocolate melt a little, then stir often with a wooden spoon or a rubber spatula to incorporate. Make sure no water touches the metal bowl or chocolate.

3. Once chocolate is melted, bring the setup with melted chocolate in the bowl over the saucepan to your workstation. This will keep the melted chocolate warmer longer. Dip the cut-end of a breadstick in chocolate, gently shake off excess chocolate and roll in sprinkles of your choice. Rest on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Repeat with the rest of the breadsticks. If chocolate hardens, heat it on the stove again just until chocolate starts to melt. Stir to incorporate with a rubber spatula and go back to 'dipping and rolling.'

4. Once the chocolate is set, store in an airtight container.

! TIPS !
! Feel free to substitute semi-sweet chocolate with white chocolate and use a pastry spatula to spread melted chocolate on breadsticks.
! Mix in a small amount of green tea powder (start from 1/4 teaspoon of powder for 1 cup of white chocolate). It infuses a hint of green tea flavor, but it's mostly for the color.

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KOREAN WORDS
사랑    (sa rang)    love
사람    (sa ram)     a person, a human being

Simple Dongchimi (동치미), Winter Radish Kimchi

Colorful dongchimi (동치미) for children

Last Saturday, the Korea Society hosted its annual family day with the theme of Seollal, the Korean New Year's Day. Kids played traditional games, made lanterns and learned how to do a proper bow for the elders on the New Year's Day. This year, I joined in on the fun and led jumeokbap (주먹밥) workshops throughout the day for kids and adults.

I also prepared dongchimi (동치미), winter radish kimchi, to go along with rice balls. It is often a mild, broth-based kimchi with tart, crunchy radish sticks. You can add a couple of hot peppers to infuse spicy heat to dongchimi. Traditionally, Korean Mu (무) radishes, some as big as your forearm, are fermented in whole with other ingredients in a big earthenware pot buried underground.

But of course, I don't have any yard or even a space in the fridge to ferment a few whole Korean Mu or patience to let them ferment in whole. So I make a simple version of dongchimi that starts fermenting within a day or two and can be stored in the refrigerator for a few weeks. Korean Mu is in season from late fall, and this is the time to make it. It is a popular ingredient in the wintertime for various uses from stews to salads, as well as its quality of facilitating digestion. 

For the Korea Society's event, I made a special version for children. I cut the radish to cubes so that it's easier to eat in one bite. I also cut carrots to thin, small rounds and punched out flower shapes from red and yellow bell peppers using vegetable cutters. With just a few more ingredients, it became pretty and colorful dongchimi that's easy for kids to try. Leftover bell pepper pieces were finely chopped and used to mix in rice for rice balls.

The pictures and the recipe below show a mix of my regular version and adjustments for kids. Fear not, it tastes like dongchimi all the same, but you'll find more colors and smaller bites in dongchimi for kids.

Simple Dongchimi (동치미), Winter Radish Kimchi
Yield - about 2 quarts or 8 cups

INGREDIENTS:
4 cups water, filtered
1/4 cup coarse sea salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 Korean Mu radish, about 2 lbs.
2 scallions, trimmed
8 cloves garlic, peeled
1 piece ginger, about the size of 2 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
1/2 onion, medium-sized, sliced
1/2 Asian pear, medium-sized, peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 apple (any sweet apple such as Gala or Fuji), medium-sized, peeled and sliced

Optional)
2~3 bell peppers of different colors to add color to white dongchimi
1~2 skinny carrots to add color
1~2 tablespoons coarse sea salt for bell peppers and carrots
1~2 red peppers (such as red Fresno pepper), sliced thinly with seeds to add spicy heat

DIRECTIONS:
1. Bring water, 2 tablespoons of coarse sea salt, and sugar to a boil. Remove from heat and let it cool to room temperature. Refrigerate to chill the water.

2. Place scallion, garlic, ginger, onion, Asian pear, apple and red pepper, if using, on the bottom of a deep container.

3. Peel and cut the mu radish to 2-inch sticks (or cubes for children). Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of coarse sea salt on radish sticks and mix well. Let rest until the outer layer of the radish sticks have softened slightly and liquid is released, about 15 minutes to 30 minutes. Wash off any remaining salt from the radish in cold water, about 3 times until there is no slimy feel to touch. Gently squeeze out excess water and add the radish to the container from Step 2.

4. If using, remove and discard the seeds and white membranes from bell peppers. Cut bell peppers to bite size or punch out different shapes with vegetable cutters such as this. Go through the same salting process for bell peppers and add to the container. Leftover bell peppers after cutting out shapes can be chopped and used for colorful rice balls.

5. Pour the chilled salt water over the ingredients. Water should be enough to immerse the ingredients. If necessary, cut out a piece of parchment paper and press it down with a plate to keep the ingredients under water.

6. Close the container with a lid or plastic wrap. Leave it out at room temperature for a day or two until bubbles form on the surface and the liquid has developed its sweet, tangy flavor.

7. Transfer dongchimi into a jar with a lid or an air-tight container. It keeps for about a month stored in the refrigerator.

8. Optional) If you want to mimic thin, crushed ice that comes with dongchimi that's stored underground in an earthenware pot, keep a cup of dongchimi broth in a shallow container or a bowl in the freezer. When thin ice starts to form after about an hour, scrape with a fork. From there, scrape with a fork every 30 minutes and put it back in the freezer until serving.

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KOREAN WORDS
진실    (jin sil)    truth
사실    (sa sil)    fact