Ole!

Today, the post office called and let me know I had a package waiting.  Oh, what could it be?  What could it be?  I always love opening care packages from the States.

Yes, it's a tortilla press!  Looks like it's time to make some Mexican dishes!

Results when I have them ...

Why?

I was up at the golf course this week walking with my barkadas.  My hand was still hurt, so I was helping them play golf while getting some exercise.  I figure I'm their concentration coach.  If they can concentrate while I'm around, they're doing great!

Look at this view ... wow ... I stopped for a few minutes just to look.

Long, Long Week

This week I've cooked a lot. Nothing was done, though, until last night. I served seven different Dim Sum dishes. I have a lot of pictures and am starting to bring everything together now.

I was happy with most of the results. Good for a first try at many of the dishes. The baked hum bao were a wonderful surprise. Got good reviews.

My experiment with the Nor Mai Gai went wrong. Too salty. I'll stick with my original recipe. Everyone said that was much better.

Anyway ... lots of pictures coming up soon! Here are some shots of the results ...

Posting Notes

Sorry about the lack of posts until now.  Our Internet connection has been in bad, bad shape since Sunday.  Nothing would get past Manila.

Here's some hints at upcoming fun:

• I have a couple of five kilo beef top rounds on the way.  They're going to be smoked, sliced, and inevitably consumed with great gusto.  I need to remember to try out some variations in the preparation of the meat.  Maybe make some nice garlic roast beef or peppered roast beef.
• Along with the rounds there's a brisket on the way.  Oh, what plans I have for it.  I'm thinking corned beef, pastrami, and some pulled beef sandwiches with a BBQ sauce.
• All this deli meat talk leads to another thing here: lack of good sandwich rolls.  I need to work on that.
• Coming up, I'm the food sponsor for the Board of Directors meeting for my local Rotary club.  I'm hoping to pull off a half-dozen or so Dim Sum dishes.  If it looks like that will fail, my backup plan is pizza.

My hand is nearly healed.  Can't believe that a little tiny bug could mess me up so badly.  Unfortunately, Big Iron's lever to raise and lower the bowl is very stiff.  Not the most ideal situation when a hand that's tender.  Maybe it's time for me to do a little maintenance work on Big Iron.

Why?

The natural beauty here is striking.  Everywhere you go there are things that are just amazing.  A couple days ago, I looked up and saw the picture below.  Skies like that don't happen everyday here, but they do happen often.

Char Siu Pastries - First Draft

Besides Nor Mai Gai and Baked Hum Bow, Char Siu pastries are one of my favorite Dim Sum dishes.  Since I already know how to make decent Nor Mai Gai, I thought I'd try out making Char Siu (Chinese BBQ pork) pastries.

Since I decided to go on a Dim Sum kick, I purchased a half-dozen cookbooks on the topic.  One of those cookbooks was Dim Sum: The Art of Chinese Tea Lunch by Ellen Leong Blonder.

So many great look dishes in this cookbook.  Fortunately, the recipe for Char Siu pastries is one of them.  Woohoo!

Since this is a recipe from a cookbook that's still in print, I'm going to skip my usual ingredient list.  Instead, I'll recommend buying the book.  There are no pictures but it has some very nice illustrations showing technique.

I've purchased many cookbooks that I've regretted.  This is one I'm very glad to have.

Procedure

This is a long process, so I recommend getting something nice to drink and get comfortable.

First, I started out making the pastry dough.  Ice water and the usual ingredients for a flaky dough.

Using my pastry cutter, I cut in the lard until the dough resembled round pebbles.

I wrapped the dough in plastic wrap and formed it to the size of about half a piece of paper (8.5" x 11" or A4, take your pick).

The recipe calls for a second dough.  Slightly different ingredients (larger amount of shortening compared to the flour content).  Again, I cut in the lard until I got a crumbly, pebble-like consistency.

The second dough is wrapped in plastic and formed into a 3" x 4" piece.  Both doughs get put into the fridge for a few hours to ensure that the shortening doesn't melt.

After their time in the cooler, both doughs are pulled out.  Here they are ready-to-go.  Rolling pin, dough, flour to roll out, and a half-sized pastry piece of parchment folded in half length-wise to use as a ruler.

I placed the small piece of dough on top of the larger one.  Really, what's going on here is similar to making puff pastry.  The small dough has more fat in it and will be used to make layers.

Fold the larger dough's sides in and seal around the smaller dough.

Roll the whole thing out to approximately 6" x 18".  As you can see, my rolling pin skills need improvement.

Once rolled out, fold into thirds.

Then, wrapped in plastic again and back into the fridge.  Again, trying to make sure that the fat doesn't melt which makes the dough tough.

A second and third time I pulled the dough out of the fridge and rolled it out to 6" x 18" in size.  After each time, I folded it in thirds and put it back into the fridge.

Now that the dough is in the fridge and resting, I turned to the filling. I pulled out a piece of my char siu pork.

Gave the delicious pork a nice dicing.

Here are the ingredients for the sauce.  Nothing secret here.  Just the normal Chinese sauce ingredients (again, not going to be precise since this is from a book in print).

A little time over the stove and the filling is born!

I put the filling into a Pyrex measuring container and put it all into the fridge.  I wanted nice and cold filling.  Easier to work with and it won't melt the fat in the dough.

Now that I had the chilled filling, I pulled the dough back out.  I attempted to roll it out to about 12" x 12".  Unfortunately, the dough was showing signs of stress.  I just didn't want to behave.  I think I overworked it and I also think I blew the ingredients a little.

I cut the rolled out dough into little 3" x 4" pieces.  I had a bit of a problem as the dough was being uncooperative.  It just didn't want to heal, so my pieces weren't exactly works of art.

Down the center of the piece of dough, I put about a tablespoon of filling.

Folded the dough over like a piece of paper ... and sealed it up.

I turned the little packet over so that the seam-side was down.

I painted an egg wash onto each pastry and sprinkled them with sesame seeds.

Here are my little pastries all laid out and ready to go into the oven.

Now, the pastries came out of the oven not flaky ... a little bit tough.  Still quite tasty.

Test Results

Primary Test Group:  Delicious!

Test Group C:  Oi!  Bring more ... and don't talk while I'm eating!

Potential Improvements

Definitely need a better crust.  I'm pretty sure that I screwed up it by overworking the dough.  I also think I added slightly too much water to the large dough.  And, I think I messed up by using lard that was at room temperature rather than cold lard.

Potential Variations

All kinds of great fillings can go into a pastry-like dough.  Still, my favorite is char siu.

Conclusions

I'm pretty sure that I'm on the right track here.  I just need more practice working with this kind of dough. 

I'll try this one again soon!

Holy Cow! Sliced Roast Beef!

A few days ago I was trying to make some Canadian bacon. I put one of my test pieces into my little smoker.  Just by sheer chance, I had some beef sirloin, too.  So, I tossed a kilo of the sirloin into the smoker with my Canadian bacon.

I didn't get any pictures of that batch of roast beef.  And, it went quickly.  So, I did what any normal person would do who had been without decent sliced meats for over a year: bought and made more.

Unfortunately, this time I was only able to get the ends of the sirloin.  Kind of like the heels of a loaf of bread.  Still, hungry beggars can't be choosers ... even at P400 (US$8.00) per kilo.

Ingredients

• Beef Sirloin
• Crushed dried bagul (coconut shell)
  

Procedure

I prepared my smoker and put the pieces of sirloin in.  To make the smoke, I'm using crushed, dried bagul (coconut shells).  They're free and plentiful.  Whenever my father-in-law harvests the coconuts and gets the kopra (dried coconut meat), we're left with a ton of this.  Plenty for me!  And, I like the price.

Here's the meat mid-way through the smoking process.  Again, note the probe from the thermometer in many of the pictures.  I'm a numbers person, so I love having that tool available to me.

I cooked the meat until it reached 145F (63C).  I wanted the meat to be fully cooked, very little to no pink.  My family here doesn't like medium rare meat.  I try to tell them that cooking meat to the well done that they prefer is a crime against nature ... it's the desolation and desecration of perfectly good meat.  They don't listen. 

So, I try to compromise.  Medium to medium well if I'm cooking for them.  With carry-over, this should hit, or come very close to, medium well.  That will please those here who don't like to see a little blood in their meat.

Here is one of my lovely pieces of meat on the cutting board and awaiting its fate ...

... getting wrapped in aluminum foil and put into the fridge overnight.  Let the meat cool before I slice it nice and thin.

I'll enjoy many, many sandwiches from this batch!

Test Results

Primary Test Group: Yum!  Marasa!  So good, kuya!

Test Group M: You really impressed me! Definitely deli quality!

Potential Improvements

I think the beef needs to be brined.  Not strongly.  Just a light brine for a few hours.

Potential Variations

Large range of variations.  One for every kind of roast beef found in your normal delicatessen.  Peppered, garlic, etc.  Personally, I'm into more plain roast beef.  Still, it would be fun to explore a bit.

I also wonder what would happen if I smoked the meat entirely while wrapped in foil.  I'll have to try that. 

Conclusions

I'll make a lot of this stuff.  Oh man, yum.  I made some sandwiches with sharp Cheddar and mayo.  It's been too long since I'd had a good sandwich. 

Once I get Canadian bacon down, I'll move onto ham.  My own personal deli ... it'll be great!