Sausage in cream bun

Been experiment with different bun recipes because I wanted the soft fluffy bread associated with Asian pastries. Have tried tangzong and it wasn't great. Came across this recipe that uses 2 different flours and also double cream and it works fantastically!

Sausage recipe (without gram measurements): http://thewoksoflife.com/2015/03/chinese-hot-dog-buns/

Hokkaido milk bread recipe (with metric measurements): http://thewoksoflife.com/2015/01/milk-bread-2/

Ingredients (makes 12)

⅔ cup (158ml) double cream - room temp

1 cup + 1 tbsp (250ml) milk - room temp

1 large egg

⅓ cup (115g) sugar

½ cup (approx 70g) cake flour

3½ cup (approx 500g) bread flour

1 ½ tsp (7g) salt 

1 tbsp dry yeast (approx 11g)

12 sausage franks

Glaze

1 egg, beaten + dash of water

1 tsp white sesame seeds

2 tbsp hot water

2 tsbp sugar

Method

1) In a bowl (or stand mixer bowl), add the following in turn: cream, milk, egg, sugar, cake and bread flours, yeast, and salt. Mix well until it forms a dough that leaves the bowl clean. If needed, add a dash more milk or flour as required.

2) Knead the dough for 20 to 25 minutes until it passes the window pane test.

3) Leave in a covered oiled bowl to prove for 1 hours or until it expands to 1.5x its size.

4) Deflate the dough and cut into 12 pieces.

5) Roll into 12 ropes and coil around the sausage, leaving a gap between each coil as it will expand. Crimp the ends or tuck them in. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment.

6) Leave to prove for another hour until fully expanded. You should see some bubbles on the surface and the edges are rounded.

7) Glaze with the egg wash. Sprinkle on the sesame seeds.

8) Bake for 14 to 15 mins in a preheated oven at 175 deg C. Rotate and swop trays halfway. 

9) While the buns are baking, make the simple sugar solution.

10) Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack. Immediately while the buns are still hot, glaze with the simple sugar solution to give it that characteristic HK baked pastry shine.

Sausage broiche rolls

Since making this quick sausage rolls a year back, I've been reading up. Although the recipe is great in a pinch, it's for eating on the day itself. The bread uses a lot of yeast which may taste too yeasty (I didn't think so) but my main bug bear was that it tasted really dry and sand-papery the next day. On doing some reading up, I found out from this improved 50 minute version that that's a known 'side effect' of the bread, that it hardens. Also, the bread must strictly be proofed only for 10 minutes or it looses its softness, and I'm never a stickler for sticking strictly to recipes. On my last try, I exceeded that 10 minute mark.

I couldn't use the 50 minute recipe because it includes pumpkin, so had to find alternatives. This recipe is adapted from mini sausage rolls (http://nasilemaklover.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/mini-sausage-bread-rolls.html) for the technique, and standard sausage rolls (http://rasamalaysia.com/sausage-rolls/2/) for the ingredients (I converted some of the measurements). Most recipes I came across used Christine's tangzong method for true soft HK buns but I might try that another time.

Ingredients (makes 8 rolls)
300g bread flour (2 cups)
5g (2 tsp dried yeast)
10g (1 tbsp) sugar
6g (1 tsp) salt
30g butter, cubed at room temperature
1 egg
200ml milk
8 sausages
1 egg + dash of milk for egg wash
Sesame seeds to top (optional)

Method
1) Put 1/2 of flour and yeast in the bowl of the food processor with the dough hook attachment. Add the sugar and salt. Combine.
2) Trickle in the egg and milk. Scrape down the sides.
3) Add in the remaining flour mixture and knead until the dough becomes elastic and leaves the side of the bowl. This took about 5 minutes.
4) Add the cubed butter a bit at a time and knead. Continue kneading till the dough becomes stretchy, glossy and soft. Try the window pane test. This took about 10 minutes. I also removed it form the food processor and continued to knead by hand for another 10 minutes. The mixture is sticky but scape it off the surface with a scraper. No additional flour to dust the surface was needed.
5) Place the dough in an oiled bowl and cover with cling film. Leave to proof for 1 to 1.5 hours depending on ambient temperature until it doubles in size.
6) Deflate and cut the dough into 8 pieces. Gently knead by folding it like a book and bring the sides down to form a ball. Return to the bowl to rest for 10 minutes. Prepare the baking trays by lining with parchment.
7) Take out each piece but keep the unused ones covered in the bowl. Roll it out into a long cylinder (about the diagonal of my 40 cm board) and coil it loosely around the sausage. Tuck in each of the ends. Place on the tray.
8) Leave to proof for 30 to 45 minutes until doubled in size. Coat with egg wash and sesame seeds.
9) Bake at 200 deg C (no grill) for 8 minutes, then rotate try and bake for a further 4 to 5 minutes with the grill function on until it has turned golden brown.


Recipe feedback: I really hate the brioche method of making bread because the dough is so sticky. Thankfully however, two things saved my bacon this time. First, I used bread flour, which seemed to find some structure much more easily. Second, thank God for my food processor! I've never used machinery before but when there is this much stickiness involved, it was a life saver. I still had to manually pound it for about 10 minutes to get it to window pane stage but having it help me with the first 30 minutes made a huge difference to my arm muscles and motivation to complete!

Proscuitto and fruit cocktails

Inspired by this starter that I once had during a farewell lunch held for me by an ex-colleague, I decided to make this as a starter. I was served proscuitto with melon. Not a bad idea, combining the saltiness of the Italian ham with fruit, and really easy to make too. Other than the ham and fruit, what type of fruit is up to you. I used canned because I intended to transport it and didn't want liquid seeping from fresh fruit, but you can use fresh fruit too if serving at home. It's pretty flexible, you can skewer on hard cheese, vegetables, etc.

Ingredients

Ham/Italian proscuitto

Cocktail sausages

Canned fruit (I used lychees and pineapple)

Toothpicks

Cut to size e.g. I snipped the proscuito into smaller pieces, otherwise, the salt overwhelms the sweet. Taste testing is important here and a great excuse to eat!

Skewer away. Present prettily and serve.

Quick Sausage rolls and hamburger bread

Same 40 minute recipe as the last, but I decided to let it rest after incorporatiom for 30 minutes, and rise it again for 30 minutes after shaping. For some reason, the dough was a dream. I followed the instructions and used oil rather than flour for dusting.

I made 12 bread rolls: 6 hamburger buns and 6 sausage rolls.

The sausage roll recipe said 15 to 17 sausages but that must be the canned sausages. I used hotdogs or franks, and 12 would have been just nice. Note to roll out the coil to the length of a big cutting board, otherwise it's too short to coil around the sausage!

Again, pure egg was too brown after 11 minutes. I must remember to add a splash of milk amd bake for 10 minutes at 220 deg C next time.

Mini sausage rolls
http://nasilemaklover.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/mini-sausage-bread-rolls.html

Budae jigae

I have been curious about this stew for a long time. Deciding to follow this recipe http://aeriskitchen.com/2011/05/army-base-jjigae/, I adapted it slightly.

this is my second attempt because I didn't have spam the first time. However, I didn't use ramyeon this time because I overdosed on it during mark I. However, I like the idea of melted cheese on the ramyeon, so I might try that next time.

Ingredients
450g kimchi
8 large franks, chopped
1 can 250g spam, cubed
1 packet of silken tofu
1 tbsp dwenjiang
1 tbsp gochujiang
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp fish sauce (remember that the franks and spam will be salty)
1 tbsp sesame seed oil
3 cups water

Method
1) Assemble everything in a shallow stew pot.
2) On high heat, bring everything to a rolling boil for 10 minutes. Turn down flame to low, and cover. Simmer for another 10 to 15 minutes.
3) To serve with ramyeon, you can either put it in the pot, or I prefer to cook it separately.
4) To add the cheese on top, add it after you have turned off the flame, and cover the pot. The residual heat will melt the cheese after about 2 minutes.