Monday, September 15, 2008

Savory Asian Rolls

Having a work-session at our place this weekend. Depressing enough that we needed to work on weekend, on top of that, the weather was not the best - gloomy, humid, semi-raining, semi-sunshine! So everybody decided to bring some snacks to keep going and motivated (to keep eating). I decided to make some rolls - bread rolls and spring rolls!

I have been thinking a lot about baking rolls/bread, especially after religiously checking out Elra's blog! Something about bread baking has always been somewhat intimidating. Which is rather silly due to the fact that I grew up watching a lot of dough kneading and some involved slapping dough to air and counter top - still not quite sure whether it was some anger management session taking place or that type of high level slapping was truly needed?!! Ooh, we don't do any fancy breads, just simple basic savory/sweet filled buns and rolls - I loveee coconut buns!!! And occasionally, some Chinese steamed buns. In short, I should feel okay with the bread ordeal, yeah? But I am just not.

However, enough whining, so I leafed through family's recipe and realized that there is another reason why I feel reluctant!! High protein vs low protein flour?!! Most of these recipes combine both. And I suddenly remember that in Indonesia - they kinda use the brand name to identify it, isn't it? Or that's just my silly judgment? Cakra as high protein (typically used for bread making) and Segitiga as......low protein? Or is it just all purpose flour? It's for everything kind of flour, yes? Can I just use bread flour then? King Arthur? One day I will figure this out and my oven will be spitting out toasty delicious rolls and buns like no tomorrow! :)

Then I came across another stash of recipes that I kept from random sources and this one sounds good. The picture in magazine looks like what I have in my head, savory filled buns. Big plus it only calls for all purpose flour. Bigger plus, it does not seem too demanding - effort and time.

Savory Asian Rolls
adapted from Korean Spiced Beef and Cabbage Rolls, Cooking Light, January 2008.

Filling:
- 1/2 cup chopped green onions
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- 1 tbsp chinese cooking wine
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1/4 tsp fresh ginger
- 1/4 tsp minced garlic
- 1/8 tsp ground red pepper
- 1/2 lbs ground chicken

Dough:
- 4 cups all purpose flour
- 2 tbsp baking pwder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/3 cups water
- 1/4 cup honey
- 2 tbsp canola oil

Eggwash:
- 1 tbsp water
- 1 large egg white, lightly beaten

How:
- Heat a little oil in pan. Toss all filling ingredients together. Cook until chicken is done. Remove from heat and cool completely.
- Combine dry mixture in one bowl: flour, baking powder, and salt, stir with a whisk. Combine 1 1/3 cup water, honey and canola oil, whisk. Add water mixture to flour mixture, stir until a soft dough forms.
- Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead until smooth and elastic about 5 minutes. Cover and let stand for another 5 minutes. (This is where I jumped into making this recipe, 10 minutes in a making just sounds extremely doable, isnt it?!)
- The recipe calls for rolling the dough into a 16 x 12 rectangle, 1/4" thick, on lightly floured surface. Cut dough to 12 squares. But with limited counter space, I just eyeball and portion out 15 dough-balls. Rolling each ball to a 1/4" disk.
- Cover dough with damp cloth. Work with 1 square/disk at the time, spoon about 1/4 cup filling into the center of dough. Moisten edges with water and bring corners to center. Pinch to seal.
- Place rolls, seam side down on baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Mix lightly beaten egg with water. Brush top of dough. The recipe suggests sprinkling sesame seeds on top of dough. But..I don't have any, so plain top it is.
- Bake at 375° for 25 minutes or until rolls are lightly browned.

Well, the outcome is not too bad. Not exactly great either. The dough part is somewhat bland and has crusty/crispy top as opposed to pillow soft like. Not quite what I wished it would turn out to. But maybe if I want these rolls to be the type that I want them to, I should have used the recipe that is meant for it, right?! :) To say the least, for such little time it took to make these mini rolls, I feel quite happy with the result. Plus, there was no leftover, so I really can't complain much.

Now that I am blogging this, it just occurred to me that I did not take any photos of the fillings!!! It was the best part of these small buns. Geez!

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

These look absolutely delish... seriously.. you are truly talented. Savory.... how about . YUM!

TS of eatingclub vancouver said...

They're so round! So cute. =)

Esi said...

Those rolls sounds so good and the filling sounds great too. I am going to try and get around to making some kind of bread soon!

Lia said...

Hi Im new here, i love homemades buns, smell over the kitchen when its came from the oven hmmmmm

Lia

Anonymous said...

omg they are so pretty! I can eat many of them in one sitting! :D

The Mediocre Cook said...

These look pretty awesome. I love the nice smooth round shape of them. They sound simple enough but me + simple = hilarious failure.

Dewi said...

Cecil,
The buns look so good, and the filling, hmmm deliciuos! I am tempted to borrow your recipe now.

High protein flour=the amount of gluten protein it contains. Example, all purpose flour contain 9.5% to 11.5% of gluten. Bread flour=11.5=13.5% of gluten. Most bread recipe you find in the book, would normally specified the type of flour you need. So, start making more fancy bread dear. I can see you can do it!

CECIL said...

Girl_Japan: Thank you for stopping by! :)

EatingClub: Thanks! The original recipe has the dough shaped a little bit oval, but I thought round shape just easier way to go.

Esi: I do too will try to make some bread more often.

Lia: Thanks for visiting my blog! Yes yes, the smell of baked dough from oven is yumm!

Noobcook: Thank you! They are quite filling - maybe in two sitting :)

MediocreCook: Ah, you are just being modest!! :D

Elra: Thank you!! I am writing that down in my notepad. This is so nothing compared to your delicious perfect looking breads! Like mentioned, the rolls did not come out like 'our' Indonesian buns - yumyum! But of course, I did not use the recipe that says 'Indonesian style' buns either. Heehee.

Maria said...

Your rolls look perfect! And I am sure the filling was killer! Great job!

Bharti said...

Thanks for the visit! These rolls look amazing. I'd attempted these many years ago and they turned out yum, but never made them again. Thanks for reminding me.

Julie said...

Those look awesome, and difficult. I will have to admire them from afar :)

Anonymous said...

The Asian Rolls look really good - the filling sounds yummy. I don't bake that much but I think this is on my list to make :)