Chinese style sausage (广式腊肠 & 川式腊肠)

My father's home town is Sichuan, where the spicy sausage is famous. When I was little and visited with my father for spring festival, the whole extended family normally got together and made sausage for a whole day before the festival. At the end of vacation, my father and I would carry a whole backpack of dried sausage home.

With my new Kitchen Aid equipment, I feel invincible. So I searched around internet and combined a few recipes. Stuffing sausage is not as easy as it looks on the YouTube videos. As a newbie, my spoilage rate during the process is high. But I do manage to get some good links out.

Ingredients:

Sweet sausage ingredients（广式腊肠）

Pork: 2500g ( I used the pork shoulder butt. Most recipes recommend 20-30% fat.)
Sugar - 200g (Prefer rock sugar, grounded)

Salt - 50g

Soy sauce - 30g

Sichuan pepper (Zanthoxylum 花椒) - 10g (grounded with a spice/coffee grinder)

Liquor- 50ml (Chinese hard liquor or Vodka 白酒)

Casing - LEM Products Fresh Clear Edible Collagen Casing
Cotton thread to tie the sausage

Spicy sausage ingredients（川式腊肠)

Pork: 2500g ( I used the pork shoulder butt. Most recipes recommend 20-30% fat.)
Salt - 50g

Crushed pepper - 20g
Cayenne pepper powder - 10g
Sichuan pepper (Zanthoxylum 花椒) - 10g (grounded with a spice grinder)
White pepper powder - 5g
Liquor- 50ml (Chinese hard liquor or Vodka 白酒)
Casing : Natural Hog Sausage Casing Casings
Cotton thread to tie the sausage

Steps:

1. Prepare the meat. For sweet sausage, I grounded the pork with the Food Grinder attachment first. For the spicy sausage, I just cut the meet into small pieces, about 1/2" size. Add all ingredients to each mixing bowl, marinate for 2 hours or overnight.

2. The natural hog casing need to be soaked in water for hours. Follow the instruction on the package. The Collagen casing can use as is.

3. Using the Kitchen Aid sausage stuffer, fill the meat into casing. This is the part that is harder than I thought. The pork does not come out of easily easily. It would be helpful to have two person to operate the machine also, one to push the meat down, one to hold the casing.

4. Use cotton thread to tie the sausage into smaller links, and then hang it at cool, dry place with good ventilation. Use the hard liquor to wipe the sausage skin. Use needle to pop any air bubbles. 

5. After 7-10 days, the sausage will be ready for consumption or storage.

6. Vacuum pack the sausages that will not be consumed soon, and put in freezer.

Notes:

1. Some people also smoke the sausage with wood chips in a grill. Maybe will try next time.

2. Compare to the sweet sausage from the store, my sausage is a little bit spicy. Maybe I should take out the Sichuan pepper and replace with regular pepper.

3. The sweet sausage is also drier. Maybe I should not have grounded it first.

Soft preztel

This is recipe from Food Network. My daughter wanted to bring pretzels to share at school Christmas party. Since she is learning cooking at Living Skills class at school, she did most of the work :-)

Ingredients:

Milk - 1 cup
Active dry yeast  - 2 and 1/4 tsp
Light brown sugar - 3 TBSP packed
All-purpose flour - 2 and 1/4 cups
Unsalted butter - 10 TBSP
Salt - 1 tsp
Baking soda - 1/3 cup
Coarse salt - 2 TBSP

Steps:

1. Microwave milk in a bowl until it's about 110°F. Add yeast and brown sugar, make sure the yeast and sugar is fully dissolved.
2. In mixing bowl, add milk solution, 1 teaspoon of fine salt, 2 tablespoons of butter, flour, and use stand mixer to knead into sticky dough. Put the dough covered and let it rise in a warm spot until double in size, about 1 hour.

3. Preheat the oven to 450°F and grease a large baking sheet.
4. Punch the dough to deflate it, then turn out onto a lightly floured surface. (If the dough seems tight, cover and let rest until it relaxes.) Divide the dough into 6 pieces. Roll and stretch each piece with the palms of your hands into a 30-inch rope, holding the ends and slapping the middle of the rope on the counter as you stretch. Form each rope into a pretzel shape.

5. Dissolve the baking soda in 3 cups warm water in a shallow baking dish. Gently dip each pretzel in the soda solution, then arrange on the prepared baking sheet and sprinkle with the coarse salt. Bake until golden, 10 to 12 minutes.

6. Melt the remaining 8 tablespoons butter in a shallow dish. Dip the hot pretzels in the butter, turning to coat; place on a wire rack to let excess butter drip off. Serve the pretzels warm.

Tea Leave Roasted Duck (茶香熏鸭)

This is a popular recipe from Wenxue city. Since I am not a turkey fan, we cooked this for Thanksgiving dinner, instead of turkey.

Ingredients:

For duck
Duck - one, defrosted
Salt and pepper - used to make pepper salt
For smoking
Rice - 1-2 cups
Flour - 1-2 cups
Sugar - 1-2 cups
Tea leaves - 1-2 cups
Bay leaves (香叶) - 4-6 pieces
Cloves (丁香) - 1 tsp
Sichuan pepper (Zanthoxylum 花椒) - 1 TBSP
Star anise (八角) - 4-6 pieces
Dried citrus peel - (陈皮) - 1-2 pieces

Steps:

1. On a hot frying pan, fry grounded pepper and salt together to make pepper salt.

 2. Rub duck with pepper salt, both inside and outside. Put in a plastic bag and marinate overnight in refrigerator.

3. Preheat oven to 400°F.
4. In a turkey roast pan, put all ingredients for smoking, (Lay a layer of aluminum foil at the bottom so that it is easier to clean the pan later). Then put the duck on the rack.

 5. If your roast pan has cover, that will be great. Otherwise, use aluminum foil to fully seal the pan to make a smoking chamber.

6. Put roast pan in oven and bake for 3 hours. The meat should be juicy and tender.

Christmas poinsettia chiffon cake with whipped cream frosting

This is my first time trying whipping cream. I found it pretty easy to make, but harder to work with. My hand was melting the frosting in piping bag while piping. The trick is to not to fill piping bag with too much frosting,  and also work fast. The cake and frosting should be kept refrigerated when not in use.


Butter cream frosting pk. Whipped cream frosting

• Tasting power: Whipped cream wins. It is light and have much less sugar. (Kids will definitely like butter cream frosting more.)
• Decorating power: Butter cream wins. The butter cream has thicker consistency and can be piped and holds its shape well. 
• Displaying power: Butter cream wins. The whipped cream frosting need to be chilled and does not hold up at room temperature for too long. So to show off a cake, for example at birthday party, the butter cream frosting will work better. 
• Storage power: Butter cream wins. Butter cream stays fresh in the refrigerator in an airtight container for about two weeks. Whipped icing must be stored in the refrigerator and used within two days. With either frosting, once on a cake, the cake should be eaten in two days.

Material cost: approx. $12.00

Part 1: bake two 9" chiffon cakes

See Rose swirl chiffon cake.

Part 2: Prepare the whipped cream icing

Here is video on how to make whipped cream frosting

Ingredients:

Each portion is

• cold heavy whipping cream - 1 cup (240 ml)
• Pure vanilla extract - 1/2 teaspoon 
• Sugar - 1-2 TBSP or to taste
• Wilton gel color  - green, red, and yellow

For this cake, I used about 7 cup of heavy whipping cream, almost the whole 1/2 gallon cartoon.

Steps:

Place your mixing bowl and wire whisk in the freezer for about 15-30 minutes. Then place all the ingredients in the cold bowl and beat just until stiff peaks form. If not using immediately, cover and refrigerate.

Part 3: Decorate the Christmas wreath cake

Here is a video on how to make the Christmas wreath border.
Here is a video on how to piping the poinsettia flower. 

Shao Mei (水晶烧卖)

Ingredients:

【Skin】:
Wheat starch - 1 cup
Corn starch - 1/4 cup
Boiling water - 3/4 cup
Oil - 1 TBSP
【Filling】:
Shrimp - 300g, peeled and diced
Grounded pork - 100g
Salt - 2/3 tsp
White pepper powder - 1/8 tsp
Corn starch - 1 TBSP
Cooking wine - 1 TBSP
Water - 1.5 TBSP
Minced ginger - 1.5 tsp
Minced green onion - 2 TBSP
Oil - 1 TBSP
Sugar - 1/3 tsp
Oyster sauce - 1 TBSP

Material cost approx. $7.00 (mainly depends on shrimp price :-)

Steps:

1. In a mixing bowl, add shrimp, pork, salt, white pepper powder, corn starch, cooking wine, water together, and mix them well. Let it sit for 20 minutes.
2. Add all other ingredients for filling in the mixing bowl. Beat it with a pair of chopstick in one direction until the filling it mixed thoroughly.

3. In another mixing bowl, mix wheat starch and corn starch. Pour in boiling water while stirring the mixture. When the mixture is cool, add oil and knead it into a smooth dough. Cover it and let it sit for 20 minutes.

4. Split the skin dough and roll into 24 balls. Using a rolling pin to roll into dumpling skin shape - round with the middle thicker than the edge. Add a tablespoon of filling on the skin, and wrap it in Shao Mei shape.

5. Dip the bottom of the Shao Mei in some oil, and then put in the steamer. Steam for 8 minutes.

Follow up

If you have no time to make the skin, you can also use the Wonton skin from supermarket.

Green bean puff pastry(绿豆酥)

Ingredients:

【Skin A】:
-  All purpose flour - 1 cup
-  Clarified butter - 3.5 TBSP
- Sugar - 1.5 TBSP
- Water - 4 TBSP
【Skin B】:
- Cake flour - 3/4 cup
- Green tea powder - 1 TBSP
- Clarified butter - 4 TBSP
【Filling】:
- Peeled dried green bean - half bag 200g
- Water - 2 cup
- Sugar - 0.5 - 0.75 cup
- Sweetened condensed milk - 2 TBSP
- Oil - 1/4 cup
- Corn starch - 1.5 TBSP

Steps:

1. Make the filling by boiling the peeled green bean and pan fry with other ingredients. Details in Green bean snowy moon cake (绿豆冰皮月饼).
2. Portion the green bean filling to 30-35g balls. Make 16 of them.

3. Mix ingredients for Skin A in one mixing bowl and knead the dough A until it is smooth and soft. If the dough is too dry, drop in more water.

 4. Mix ingredients for Skin B in another mixing bowl and knead the dough B until it is smooth and soft. If the dough is too dry, drop in more clarified butter.
5. Cover the dough and let them sitting for 20 minutes.
6. Split the dough A and dough B into 8 equal portions. Roll them into balls.

7. Flatten the white ball and wrap it around green ball.

8. Flatten the wrapped ball into long oval shape with a rolling pin, and then roll it up by hand.

9. Make all 8 rolls. Cover them and let them sit for 10 minutes.
10. Let the end of the roll facing up, and flatten the roll with a rolling pin, and then roll it up by hand again.

10. Make all 8 rolls, cover them and let them sit for 10 minutes.
11. Take a roll, and cut it in the middle with a knife. Now you can see the marble inside.

12. Use rolling pin to roll each piece into a circle about 3 inch diameter. Wrap a green bean filling ball inside. NOTE: the marbled side should facing out when you wrap the filling.

13. Place the complete pastry on baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

14. Preheat oven to 350°F. Then put in the baking sheet to bake for 35 minutes.

Follow up:

Daughter wants red bean filling, so I cut each skin dough size in half, replace green tea powder with Cocoa powder, and make the mini red bean puff pastry. Those bite size pastry is just the right size for snack.