Lor Bak Go (Radish Cake) & Chicken Bao

Normally, Sunday mornings are a time when my family likes to go out and eat dim sum. But, since my parents are still on vacation and my sisters and I didn't want to miss the Olympic Men's Hockey Gold-medal Game, we decided to make dim sum at home! I had some zongzi in the freezer from Chinese New Year, so we steamed up a couple of those as well as some gai lan. But, we wanted to round out the meal with at least 2 other dim sum dishes. So, we chose Lor Bak Go and Steamed Chicken Buns.
Lor Bak Go

Ingredients:
- 2 cups rice flour
- 1/4 cup tapioca starch
- 1 tsp salt, or to taste
- 2 links of lap cheong (Chinese sausage), diced
- 3 cups daikon, grated
- 1/2 small onion, minced
- 2-3 garlic cloves, minced
- vegetable oil

Method:
1. Combine rice flour, tapioca starch and salt in a large bowl.
2. Boil the daikon in a heavy-bottomed pot for 10minutes. Drain, but reserve the cooking liquid. Set the liquid and cooked daikon aside
3. Heat some oil in a frying pan and cook the lap cheong, garlic and onions for 2 minutes. Set aside. (You do not need to wash the frying pan yet! You will use it to pan-fry the lor bak go)
4. Add the daikon to the flour mixture and slowly add in 3 cups of the cooking liquid. Mix until no dry clumps are visible.
5. Add the lap cheong mixture to the batter and continue to mix.
6. Pour the batter into a greased, steam-proof 8x8inch square, or 9inch round, tray. Steam for 45minutes. When finished cooking, let lor bak go cool completely.
7. Remove the lor bak go from the steaming tray and slice it into 1/2-inch slices.
8. Heat up the frying pan again to medium-high heat, adding more oil if necessary. Pan fry the lor bak go slices until crispy and golden brown on both sides.

This dish has got to be my sisters' most favorite dish at yum cha. We always order 2-3 servings of it when we go to dim sum. The final result of this recipe was gladly gobbled up by my Lor Bak Go loving sisters and they said that they could hardly tell the difference between mine and the ones we eat at the restaurant! *blush* They're so sweet...

But now, onto the chicken buns! My middle sister loves these, even more so than Char Siew Bao. Actually, she told me that she dislikes Char Siew because of the fatty, flubby and tendon-ness of the meat... too hard to chew, she says. So, with this in mind I decided to use a really nice chicken breast for the filling of the buns. The chicken breast had no flubby skin and no tendons or cartilage pieces, so there would be no risk of my sister getting picky about the meat... YAY!

Chicken Bao

Dough Ingredients:
- 2 cups flour
- 1.5 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp margarine
- 3/8 cup water
- 1/2 tbsp vinegar
- 1 egg white

Filling Ingredients:
- 250g chicken breast, minced
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1/2 small onion, minced
- 1inch knob of garlic, minced
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Combine flour, sugar, salt and baking soda in a large bowl. Blend in the margarine, until they are well incorporated.

In a separate bowl, mix together the vinegar, water and egg white.

Add water mixture to flour mixture, knead until dough comes together and is smooth.

Roll the smooth dough into a thick log shape, roughly 1.5 inches in diameter.

Cover dough in cling-wrap and let rest in fridge for at least 1 hour.

Make the filling: mince the chicken breast, garlic and onions and combine. Add in soy sauce and salt + pepper to taste.

When dough has rested, remove from cling-wrap and cut log into 10 equal sized pieces.

Roll dough into flattened circles, fill with 2 tbsp of chicken filling and shape the buns.

Prepare a steaming plate by laying cabbage leaves on it. Arrange the chicken buns on the cabbage leaves and steam the buns for 30minutes.

Enjoy!

Read more: http://caloriecount.about.com/steamed-chicken-bun-bao-no-recipe-r340420#ixzz0gs3yxVfV

1. Combine flour, sugar, salt and baking soda in a large bowl. Blend in the margarine, until well incorporated.
2. In a separate bowl, mix together the vinegar, water and egg white.
3. Add water mixture to flour mixture, knead until dough comes together and is smooth.
4. Roll the smooth dough into a thick log shape, roughly 1.5 inches in diameter.
5. Cover dough in cling-wrap and let rest in fridge for at least 1 hour.
6. Make the filling by mixing together the minced chicken, garlic, ginger and onions. Then, add in soy sauce and salt & pepper to taste.
7. When dough has rested, remove from cling-wrap and cut log into 10 equal sized pieces.
8. Roll dough into flattened circles, and fill with 2 tbsp of filling. Shape the buns.
9. Prepare a steam-proof plate by laying cabbage leaves on it. Arrange the chicken buns on the cabbage leaves and steam the buns for 30-40minutes.
10. Serve!

The buns were also a success! Even my youngest sister, who normally hates to eat bao bao enjoyed these buns and devoured TWO! Now, that's saying something. I quite enjoyed the buns as well. I liked the recipe because the dough was fairly simple to make, and didn't require yeast or raising time. Without the yeast to make the dough fluffy, the texture of this bao was more like a tasty noodle or a giant xiaolong bao. I will definitely have to bake this recipe again, for my parents... because I don't think there will be any left by the time they come back :P

Combine flour, sugar, salt and baking soda in a large bowl. Blend in the margarine, until they are well incorporated.

In a separate bowl, mix together the vinegar, water and egg white.

Add water mixture to flour mixture, knead until dough comes together and is smooth.

Roll the smooth dough into a thick log shape, roughly 1.5 inches in diameter.

Cover dough in cling-wrap and let rest in fridge for at least 1 hour.

Make the filling: mince the chicken breast, garlic and onions and combine. Add in soy sauce and salt + pepper to taste.

When dough has rested, remove from cling-wrap and cut log into 10 equal sized pieces.

Roll dough into flattened circles, fill with 2 tbsp of chicken filling and shape the buns.

Prepare a steaming plate by laying cabbage leaves on it. Arrange the chicken buns on the cabbage leaves and steam the buns for 30minutes.

Enjoy!

Read more: http://caloriecount.about.com/steamed-chicken-bun-bao-no-recipe-r340420#ixzz0gs3yxVfV

Mmm... the delicious bao. Hehehe... look at the mini one (on the right) I made with the leftover scraps :P it looks so gibbled

Rainbow Butterfly: A Review

It's not often that my family takes a chance and ventures out to try a new dim-sum restaurant, but I guess my parents just didn't feel like having to drive all the way to Richmond for some good old HK breakfast. Instead, we decided to dine at this quaint little Chinese restaurant in Port Coquitlam called Rainbow Butterfly. I'm usually pretty wary of a restaurant that uses strange imagery within their name, but since this place did not use the words "panda" or "dragon" or "authentic Chinese cuisine" I was all for dining there. The following is a picture show of the amazing dishes that they served, with commentary of course :P

All of the dishes below were $2.75, except for the special dishes which were $3.75 or the "Chef Specials" which were $4.75.

As always, we ordered a bowl of congee... nothing amazing, but certainly tasty. It was considered a "Chef's Special" and in my opinion, not worth $4.95

Another dim-sum fave... lor bak gou. Again, tasty but nothing to rave about.

Can't go wrong with chicken feet... I thought these were really flavorful, and not too salty.

Their gyoza was nicely fried and crisp. Although, the skin was more doughy than I would have liked, and it cost $4.75!

I really enjoyed this chiu chow fun quor, it had pork, peanuts and chives... mmmm quite yummy.

Xiao Long Bao, another yum cha classic... my sisters devoured these and literally drank the red vinegar! Crazy kids.

Steamed rice rolls with scallop, $3.75

The beef omasum was soft and gingery

Their satay honeycomb tripe was also very nice and soft. It's one of my favorite dishes and they did not disappoint.

When we first received this dish, we weren't quite sure what it was. Then one bite into it and we could taste the seafood and pumpkin. These were a delightful addition to our lunch

I love my egg-tofu, and when combined with shrimp it's even better.

One of the best dishes at the Rainbow Butterfly has got to be their fried eggplant with pepper, salt, garlic and dried shrimp. They were crispy and spicy and just all-round delicious! And although it was a "Chef's Special" and costing $4.95 per dish, it was totally worth it.

I would definitely get this again, it was AMAZING! These fried bitter melon sesame balls, filled with black-sesame paste were ooey-gooey and oh so sweet!

My sister loves her mango pudding, in my opinion it's not as good as the one our mom makes but it was still better than the cheap, imitation mango puddings from sushi restaurants :P

My mom really loves her baked sago, and so she got one of these warm, rich puddings. I had to try a little, and really enjoyed the taro-paste they filled it with. It was a great alternative to the traditional red-bean paste.

I'm also a sucker for agar-agar. I had to try this chilled lychee and longgan agar-agar cake. It was very refreshing and had a nice, crisp bite to it. The wolfberries inside were a great addition to the cake... I'll have to see if I can make this one at home!

Yes, I called this one as well. I'm a sucker for the dessert section of dim-sum. This rich, flaky butter pastry was filled with a lotus-seed and ginger paste and had a century egg in the center. It was so rich and tasty... I felt so guilty eating two!

All in all, I would definitely recommend a visit to Rainbow Butterfly. The service is friendly and very quick. They are very attentive and accomodating to your requests if you are kind and friendly yourself. They have a great variety of traditional and specialty dim-sum dishes and they are, for the most part, relatively decent in price. I plan on making a return visit to Rainbow Butterfly, and ordering all my favorites plus a few other specialties that caught my eye last time. Sadly, neither my stomach nor my wallet are big enough to accomodate what my eyes beg for me to try :( but that just means I'll be back for more!

Kam Ding

Rating: *** 1/2 out of *****

Another sunny afternoon, another chance to get out there and go to dim-sum! My favorite meal time experience. This time we went to another little known, but very good dim sum restaurant in Coquitlam. Man, it seems like Coquitlam is where it's at, if you're looking for good Southeast Asian or Authentic Chinese food. We were first introduced this this restaurant by some friends at Bible Study. They had invited the entire Bible Study group to go out for a meal here following one of our group camping trips. And after eating camp food for the last week, we were more than ready to dig into some good ol' dim sum. This time however, we were just ready to savour the delicious dishes...

We always order the beef cheong fun, my sisters don't particularly enjoy the meat filling... but they adore the "skin".


My parents and I shared these scallop har gow... mmmm good.


These prawn-stuffed wintermelon sections were really good. The slightly sweet melon contrasted but also enhanced the prawns flavour.

The full spread (from the top) minced-chicken sticky rice, prawn-stuffed wintermelon, fungzhao, and the scallop har gow.

Steamed beef tripe and curried squid... two more essential dishes whenever we dine out for dim sum.

My sisters love their jook, almost as much as they love the one from Hon's. I love their generous helping of spring onions and the you tiao.

The bad thing about this restaurant is that they don't take reservations. First-come first serve :( If you get their early enough, you can find a seat quickly and the bus-people try to move as quickly as possible. The restaurant is quite small, so if it's busy you may be waiting for 30-40 minutes for a table... unless you are a party of two and don't mind sharing a table with random strangers. Luckily we knew all of this information before-hand, and this way we got a seat within 10minutes. With the hustle-and-bustle of this place, the service is very good and the waitresses are very attentive. I do recommend you go to Kam Ding at least once.

Kam Ding

3021 Anson Avenue, Coquitlam

Chinese Breakfast

Hmmm... I was just waking up from a wonderful nights sleep (don't get too many of those :P) and I thought I might whip up something for breakfast. I settled on Chee Cheong Fun, my younger sister adores the stuff... unfortunately most pre-packaged Chee Cheong Fun has shrimp as a main ingredient (and since my sis is allergic to shellfish, she rarely gets to eat it :( unless it's plain... which isn't fun at all). I followed the recipe from kuali.com but had to search around the internet for a fool-proof method for preparing this dish. It seems like this recipe is one of the more tricky ones to prepare. I found an great step by step (with pictures too) set of instructions from lilyng2000.blogspot.com. So since my sister is allergic to prawn I decided to use shredded chinese mushroom, ground pork and finely-diced lap cheong as my Chee Cheong Fun add-ins.

My dad had also purchased some Yao Char Kuey, and I used it to make one of my favorite Yum Cha dishes... Yao Char Kueh wrapped in Rice Paper.

My parents quite enjoyed both of my breakfast dishes. Mom was very impressed that I could make Chee Cheong Fun, and so was I :P My sister appreciated the effort I put into making her the Cheong Fun without shrimp, and she gobble it down. I enjoyed mine with some good old hoisin sauce and sesame seeds. Mom and dad like their's with soy sauce, sesame seeds, sambal olek and sesame oil. My sis just likes it plain, with maybe a little bit of hoisin. Whatever way you eat this dish, it's delicious... believe me!

Dim Sum in Vancouver

Rating: ** out of *****

Last weekend my family went out for yum cha, but instead of driving all the way to Richmond we decided to try out this place in Vancouver. We went there right after church (12pm) and had to wait 15 minutes for a table (not too bad, considering we were there at peak time). The restaurant was very crowded and it seemed as if they squeezed as many tables as they could into the restaurant while giving minimal space for the push-carts to move. I had my chair hit a couple of times by the food-carts, but I didn't mind... the smell of the food distracted me :P

The food they wheeled around on the push-carts was well varied. They had noodles and many different types of baos, dumplings and vegetable dishes.

Braised Beef Tripe, I didn't find it flavourful enough. I thought it needed more ginger.

Deep-fried Shrimp + Chive Dumplings, I quite liked these. They were stuffed with lots of shrimp, and the crunchy wrapper was nice and light.

Almost like Har Gow, but the skin was a bit thicker. These were pretty good too!

My sisters called for the chicken wings... nothing to rave about.

I really enjoyed the stuffed eggplant, they're larger than the ones at Neptune and have more spice to them.

The water chestnut cake was my favourite dish. It was sweet, soft and chewy.

Their mango pudding was just okay, my mom makes a nicer one.

My sister loved the mai lai koh. The push-cart carrying this cake had a giant bamboo steamer (probably 18-inches in diameter) holding that 18-inch cake!

Although the food was fair, the service was very poor. Albeit, the restaurant was very busy at the time (never go around noon, unless you want to wait long to be seated) but they still need to work on their customer service. This one lady in particular must've been having a crappy day, or something. When we asked her for some chili sauce, she begrudgingly gave us one tiny dish. We then asked her for a second one (because one was for sure not enought for the 5 of us) and she gave us one more, but with a frustrated face. After about 3 dishes, we ran out of chili (yes, my family is renouned for our chili using abilities) so we asked for some more chili. The closest server to our table was, unluckily, the same lady who gave us chili the first time. My mom held out the dish, and the lady walked right past her! When my mom asked again, the lady grabbed her chili bottle and angrily squirted my mom's dish and then quickly stormed away.

It wasn't just the server that made the atmosphere tense, but the whole restaurant seemed to be in a "rushed" mode. The push-carts were being wheeled around like race cars, and the servers were talking so quickly you could barely make out what they were asking. It was as if they wanted you to eat-and-leave ASAP. It was a bit more expensive than Neptune. We were lured to East No. 1 because of it's sign, "Dim sum for $2.00 everyday until 3pm". But when we got the bill, the only dish that was $2.00 was the mango pudding! The false advertising was quite disappointing. Being that this place was more expensive than Neptune, and the service was much, much worse, I do not think we will be returning to East No. 1 in the future.

Lor Bak Koh... almost

I wanted to use up the remaining 2/3rds of my acorn squash (left-over from my japanese-inspired dinner) but was having a hard time deciding what to prepare. Then I remembered a while back, when my family went out for dim-sum at Neptune in Richmond (see post here) we ordered this pan-fried pumpkin cake. Noting that my acorn squash and pumpkin are from the same "squash" family I decided that this would be the recipe I would whip up. You can find the recipe at Jo's Deli & Bakery... this site has some really great recipes for Southeast Asian favorites. Couldn't find any dried shrimp in the house (Note to self: I must go out and get some for future recipes) so I just increased the amount of lap cheong in the recipe. After steaming, cutting and frying this dim-sum treat I ate it with some of Yeo's Sweet Chili Sauce. If you have not tried this chili yet, you must... it goes with everything: char siew bao, zongzi, ham sui kok and all the dim-sum treats!!! Sorry, about the tangent... sometimes I get off track. My pan-fried acorn squash cake was very tasty and had a perfect texture. Soft on the inside and crisp on the outside, truly the only way all "Lor Bak Koh" are meant to be eaten!

Family Outings: Luxe

Rating ***1/2 out of *****

Yeah for dim sum! Just this past weekend my family decided to try out a new dim sum restaurant that recently opened up in Langley.

Order from either their menu or simply pick a dish you like as it is brought to your table...

Before I get to the food... let's take in the aesthetics of this new dining location, shall we?

Such a cute condiments dish... they even give you a tiny spoon to dish out the sauce. How thoughtful!

The place settings, tea cups and tea pots were all themed beautifully. The rippling effect on all the dishes, and the decision to have everything in white was very elegant.

Finally, on to the food... We started with their char siew puff pastry rolls. The flakiness was perfect with the savouriness.

Their beef tripe was very good. The texture was perfect and the sauce was not too over-powering.

We also ordered another type of beef tripe... this one was more marinated, but the sauce was still perfect (not too salty, but very flavourful)

We never go to dim sum without trying the phuong thao... these ones were more spicy than the ones from Neptune. I actually enjoyed these better!

Luxe claypot chicken rice is a must... the portion is quite large and only came around $6.50, not bad considering they give you lots of chicken, veggies and one whole lap cheong!

And for dessert... Mango Pudding. Good, but not as good as my mom's :P

Sure it just looks like a plain old bao, but this was one of my favourite dishes. IT was filled with lotus paste and salted egg yolk... I love anything with salted egg yolk

All-in-all, Luxe's Restaurant was a very enjoyable dining experience. The waiters were friendly and catered to our needs, the host was very knowledgeable and seemed genuinely pleased to greet us. The food was delicious and the atmosphere was very inviting and serene. If you do find yourself somewhere in Langley, I recommend Luxe... for dim sum or just for a dinner outing. Two-thumbs up!