I haven't had a heavy, dense, hand made Chinese steamed bread since childhood. The breads that I buy in market nowadays are all too puffy. Therefore, I decided to make my own bread at home.
Since the temperature and humidity are different in each place, the recipe may not be exactly right to fit your kitchen. You may want to adjust the amounts of water/flour. However, the basic idea of making a nice dough is feel it with your hands. The amounts will be right if the dough feels not too dry, not too wet and flexible in your hands.
Kneading this kind of bread dough is very similar to kneading Cold Noodle dough.
Ingredients:
4 cups of whole wheat flour, 1 cup warm milk (or warm water), 7g active yeast, 1 TBSP dark brown sugar, ¼ TSP salt (option), 1 cup of raisins and/or dry cranberries/blue berries/millet or nuts (option)
4 cups of whole wheat flour, 1 cup warm milk (or warm water), 7g active yeast, 1 TBSP dark brown sugar, ¼ TSP salt (option), 1 cup of raisins and/or dry cranberries/blue berries/millet or nuts (option)
1. Put yeast in half amount of warm milk (or warm water). The liquid has to be warm but not hot (test it with your finger) so that the yeast can be alive. Do not stir the water/milk. Leave it for 20 minutes
2. Add sugar into the remaining amount of milk/water, stir it evenly.
3. Put flour in a big wok; mix well with yeast milk (or water), sugar milk (or water) and salt.
4. Spread some bread flour on the table. Knead till the surface of dough is smooth and there is no flour on your hands or table.
5. Cover the dough with a wet cloth/paper towel (or put the dough in a big wok, cover with lid) for about 2 hours or until the size of dough rises to double.
6. Take the dough out of wok, put it on the table, press the dough and get the air out of the dough.
7. Add dried fruit and nuts (or skip this step if you will not add anything), knead the dough evenly.
8. Make the dough into a round shape with a smooth surface. Put it back into the wok with lid (or cover with a wet paper towel) to rise again for another 20 minutes
9. Take out the dough, knead it to oblong shape, cut (or hand divide) it into 8 round pieces.
10. Boil water in the steamer. Then turn off the heat.
11. Put a wet paper towel in the perforated pan; Put 8 round dough pieces on the paper towel.
12. Put the perforated pan inside the steamer, put the lid on, rise for another 20 minutes (DO NOT turn on the heat)
13. Now, after step 12 is finished, steam the dough with medium heat for 20 minutes.
14. If the lid does not have enough holes to allow the steam to escape, then insert an absorbent towel between the lid and pan, taking care to keep the towel away from the burner.
(The easier way to steam Chinese bread is using Chinese Ta Tung rice cooker. The picture of the cooker is HERE. Simply put 3 cups of water in the cooker, place an empty bowl in it, put a steam pan with a wet paper towel on the top of the bowl. Steam doughs until the cooker shuts off).
15. Chinese steamed bread can be used to make a sandwich: Slice the bread into 3 parts, add scramble eggs, vegetable or a piece of ham between the slices.
16. To store the breads: simply put them in the freezer, defrost them before you steam them again
饅頭重要的是發麵和蒸煮時的技巧，其餘可依自己口味變化配方，例如雜糧饅頭、堅果饅頭、黑糖饅頭等。由於溫度與濕度不同, 你可能需要加減麵粉或水量. 手工饅頭由於未加膨鬆劑，或用機器幫忙，比較結實緊密，吃一個可抵一餐，揉麵的時候也會比較辛苦一點，但十分有成就感，吃不完的饅頭分裝袋中冷凍，下次要吃時用電鍋再蒸一下即可。
材料：全麥麵粉 1000g，水或牛奶 300cc，乾酵母7g，黑糖 50g，鹽4g (可省略) ，其它 (葡萄乾，蔓越莓，藍莓…看做什麼口味，亦可什麼都不加)
1.取水/奶量的 1/10 ( 20 cc) 活化酵母 20 分鐘 (溫度不要太高，會燙死它們，水/奶溫以不燙手為準)，若用速發酵母 (Instant Yeast) 則省略此叫醒過程，直接加入麵粉即可
2. 剩下的水或牛奶加入糖拌勻
3. 麵粉放大盆中，加酵母水 (或酵母奶)，糖奶 (或糖水)，鹽，拌均
5. 麵團蓋上濕布，或放在大鍋中，蓋上蓋子，發酵 2 小時，或至麵團 2倍大
6. 發好的麵團取出放桌上 ，壓出空氣，加入其他配料 (例如葡萄乾)，揉勻，整型成圓狀，開口收好朝下，蓋上濕布或蓋子，再醱酵20分鐘
7. 二次發酵好的麵團取出，揉成長橢圓形，揪或切成 8 小塊
8. 蒸盤舖上濕紗布或濕紙巾，將小麵團等距排好
9. 大同電鍋外鍋三杯水，蒸到跳鍋即可
10. 若用蒸籠，須先將水煮滾，關火，然後將舖妥濕紗布，放好麵團的蒸盤放上去，用餘熱發酵 20 分鐘 (不開火)，然後才開中火再蒸 20 分鐘
11. 若用不鏽鋼蒸籠 (蓋子無氣孔)，則須將蓋子內部包上一層乾布 (見圖)，防止水蒸氣滴到麵團上
沒有留言:
張貼留言