Winter Melon Pastry Filling 冬瓜餡

 

Onward on another new and exciting food filling for our Five Flavors Mini Crystal Zongzi!  This Winter Melon Pastry Filling 冬瓜餡 is a filling that surprised us quite a bit.  I had never realized that the Winter Melon Candy could be used to make a filling!  Even though candied, the winter melon candy still retains the sponginess of the original melon, thus, when transformed into this filling, it soaks up all the flavors it is cooked with, especially the floral hints from the osmanthus flower syrup.  Sweet and delicate, this unique filling is quite delectable!

Matcha Pastry Filling 抹茶餡

Look at this green!  This is another one of the Five Flavors of Filling that we made for our zongzi 粽子 this year.  The gorgeous green comes from matcha 抹茶, the finely ground powder of green tea, used in Japan traditionally as a part of the tea ceremony.  It is also, most delightfully, used in baked goods and candies, the fact of which we exploit today by making this Matcha Pastry Filling 抹茶餡, a creamy, luscious, gorgeously green pastry filling with a unique grassy, sweet yet slightly bitter umami flavor that is out of this world!

Pineapple Custard Pastry Filling 鳳梨蛋奶餡

Wow-oh-wow, look at this gorgeous yellow!  As one of the flavors used for our Five Flavors Mini Crystal Zongzi 五味迷你水晶粽子, this fruity filling starts with a coconut milk custard base and combines it with cooked down pineapple, creating a creamy Pineapple Custard Pastry Filling 鳳梨蛋奶餡 that is bursting with fresh, gorgeous, sweet and tart tropical flavors!

Coconut Milk Custard Pastry Filling 椰香蛋奶餡

We start with the creamiest and most basic flavor of the five as we begin our tour of the Five Flavors Mini Crystal Zongzi 五味迷你水晶粽子 filling's flavors.  Based on the classic and comforting flavors of custard and coconut, this Coconut Milk Custard Pastry 椰香蛋奶餡 is a milky, eggy creamy delight that is easy to make and suitable not only as filling for zongzi 粽子 but also for all kinds of Chinese pastries and bao!

Chinese Lotus Paste Cookie Pastry 蓮子糕餅

Recently we've been all over our new dim sum recipe book, 正統中式點心全書: 師承香港傳奇料理大師 by 吉岡勝美 which translates into 'The Complete Book of Authentic Chinese Dim Sum' by Katsumi Yoshioka.  The Japanese author of this book apprenticed with the legendary culinary master Chef Liang Jing 梁敬, at the 敬賓酒家, a famous Cantonese restaurant in the 80's.  Omgosh, this book, it's so fab! 

Y'all know that dim sum is traditional Cantonese way of eating where bite sized dishes, both sweet and savory, are served alongside of pots of fragrant tea.  Dim sum translates to  'touch the heart' and is one of the Cantonese culinary treasures!

From this recipe book we previously made the Chinese Peony Pastry 牡丹形酥餅, a most delightful pastry that opens silky pastry petals out just like a real flower.  This time we tried another pastry from this dim sum book, Chinese Lotus Paste Cookie Pastry 蓮子糕餅, and were so taken with the results...in other words, can't stop eating!  These small delicate morsels of pastry consist of a flavorful cookie dough wrapped about a lusciously smooth and velvety lotus seed paste filling.  Kinda like a Chinese version of petit fours.  What's there not to love?  

Chinese Peony Pastry 牡丹形酥餅

Dear readers, I have recently discovered a most fabulous book of dim sum!  Dim sum 點心 is a traditional Cantonese style of dining on small bite sized tidbits, both sweet and savory, all exquisitely presented, while drinking fragrant Chinese tea.  Ooooo..we love us some dim sum, how about y'all?

The dim sum book of which I speak is 正統中式點心全書: 師承香港傳奇料理大師 by 吉岡勝美 which translates into The Complete Book of Authentic Chinese Dim Sum by Katsumi Yoshioka.  The Japanese author of this book apprenticed with the legendary culinary master Chef Liang Jing 梁敬, at the 敬賓酒家, a famous Cantonese restaurant in the 80's.

This is our first try at a recipe from this book and boy-o-boy are we pleased!  Around a delicious heart of creamy lotus seed paste, this Chinese Peony Pastry 牡丹形酥餅 opens out in the most delicate flaky pastry petal layers, looking just like real peony blossoms.  Super duper uber gorgeous amirite?!  And the perfect special treat to celebrate the Chinese New Year!

Chinese Chocolate Pastry Filling Paste 巧克力餡

It turns out that you can make all kinds of fun new and creative fillings for your Chinese pastries and buns.  I recently discovered what I think is the key to being able to do this: white bean paste.  I had not heard of white bean paste until recently, having only known its famous cousin, red bean paste 紅豆沙.

White bean paste 白豆沙 is a sweet, creamy mildly bean flavored paste of light color.  It is used to fill pastries to delicious effect.  A super added plus is that white bean paste takes on both color and flavors really well, thus allowing for all kinds of new filling flavors to be made.

We start off exploring the versatility of white bean paste by adding chocolate to it.  So exciting, cuz I love, love, love chocolate.  Our Chinese chocolate pastry filling turned out incredible: oh so chocolaty, creamy, and oozy.  A perfect hidden heart of smooth creamy chocolate!

Salted Egg Yolk Lotus Seed Paste Bun 白蓮蓉鹹蛋包

This gorgeous gold and orange round within round of yummiliciousness in a pristine white bun is our offering for this year's Chinese New Year, the Year of the Tiger.   The perfect circle of the yolk in this Salted Egg Yolk Lotus Seed Paste Bun symbolizes the all important Chinese concept of the family unity.  

Not saying that Chinese families don't fight, they do and they do it just as robustly as other folk do (yeah, personal experience).  

But even with all the fighting that can happen, the Chinese believe that family is the bedrock.  This is especially so around Chinese New Year when the whole family gets together to bring in the New Year.  Our Salted Egg Yolk Lotus Seed Paste Bun 白蓮蓉鹹蛋包 is not only yummilicious with its soft fluffy white bread wrapped around a heart of creamy sweet lotus seed paste and lusciously melty salted egg yolk but also rich in its symbolism of unity.  It's the perfect way to celebrate the New Year!

Homemade Lotus Seed Paste 白蓮蓉

This lovely round of goldenness is my homemade Lotus Seed Paste,  白蓮蓉 , a soft, luscious, slightly nutty sweet paste made from lotus seeds that is used in many Chinese pastries and cake, including the famous Lotus Paste Double Yolk Mooncake 雙黃白蓮蓉月餅.  During our making of Lotus Seed Egg Tea  蓮子蛋茶 recently we discovered the secret of cooking lotus seeds that allows them to become meltingly soft.  

I realized then that this technique might make a huge impact on the lotus seed paste (that we previously wrote about when making Double Lotus Mooncake) that we make at home for our various mooncakes and Chinese pastries.  I tried it and I was right!  It totally made a huge difference, the softer lotus seeds pureed and cooked down into a lusciously soft creamy and melty paste, just like the ones in the shops!

Chinese Sachima Soft Flour Pastry Cake 沙琪瑪

With the Dragon Boat Festival 端午節 around the corner, we're already dreaming of those aromatic, meltingly tender bites of savory pork filled zong zi and sweet red bean zong zi.  YUM!  I love festival foods!  

This year, in addition to these traditional festival dumplings I decided to try making a personal childhood favorite of mine, the delectable Chinese Sachima Soft Flour Pastry Cake 沙琪瑪 (or 馬仔 as it is known locally in HK), a light, fluffy, tender pastry made of fried dough strips tossed with delicious caramelized syrup, dotted with raisins and roasted sesame seeds, then pressed and cut into delectable squares.  Kinda like a Chinese rice krispie cake in principle but uniquely different and even more delicious!  

I remember that my folks used to go all the way downtown to the Chinese bakery to bring back these treats, packed carefully in a beautiful pink box tied with a red string.  My sisters and I, the three of us, would fight fiercely over the biggest squares of sachima, which my sneaky older sister usually won.  Nowadays my little girl loves it as well and so we decided to make it together, it was so much fun!

Mung Bean Paste 綠豆沙餡

This is one of the classic Chinese pastry cake fillings, the Green Mung Bean Paste 綠豆沙餡, a light, creamy, beany and nutty sweet golden filling that is one of my favorite fillings.  We used this paste to make our yummilicious Green Mung Bean Cakes 綠豆糕 for Duanwu Dragon Boat Festival  端午節 this year but actually it is more often used in as a tender filling for various Chinese cakes, pastries, cookies and even mooncakes.

Mung Bean Cakes 綠豆糕

It's almost time for Duanwu Dragon Boat Festival 端午節 when the mighty dragon boats are once again afloat on the harbors to race each other to the booming beat of drums!  

Did you know besides the making and eating of yummilicious zong zi to celebrate this festival (usually either the savory meat filled zong zi 肉粽子 or the sweet red bean paste zong zi 紅豆沙粽子) the origins of the Duanwu Festival also has to do with a traditional time of ritual protection against pestilence and poisonous animals brought on by the heat of the summer season?

One of the things done in order to protect against summer sickness was to consume 'cooling' foods to help the body dispel heat and eliminate toxins.  Happily one of the traditional 'cooling' foods made for this purpose is the delighfully light and sweet Green Mung Bean Cake 綠豆糕, an elegant mold shaped sweet pastry of fragrant mung bean paste stuffed with sweet red bean paste.  

So beautiful to look at and tasty to boot...you won't believe how fast these little cakes disappear!