Steam Pumpkin Bun

Ingredients

• 85g pumpkin puree
• 35g raw sugar
• 250gram of plain flour
• 3g instant yeast
• 3g baking powder
• 1/8teaspoon salt
• 15g olive oil
• 60g water (including the juice from the pumpkin)

Steps:

1. To make the pumpkin puree, remove the skin and cut 120g of pumpkin to thin slices. Steam over high heat for 5-7mins.
2. Let it cool down and then mashed it with a fork. Use a fine sieve and mash it on it. This will squeeze out the water from the steam pumpkin.
3. Mix half the water to the instant yeast and set it aside. Since it is early winter now, I had mix the pumpkin juice with some hot water so that it is warm.
4. Mix the flour, baking powder, sugar and pumpkin puree together. Stir it to mix. Then add in salt, olive oil, yeast liquid and the rest of the water and knead.
5. I had knead with hand yesterday coz I wanted some exercise but you can use the mixer to do it. With hand, I had knead for about 5mins till the mixture had turn into a nice non sticky dough.
6. Cover the dough with a cling wrap and set it aside to let it proof for about 20mins. Again, if your place is cold like where I am now, prepare a warm water bath (3:2 hot to cold water ratio) and set the dough on top to proof.
7. Punch down the dough and cut to desire size and shape accordingly. I had rolled mine with some home made meat floss. Recipe available here.
8. Leave it to proof for another 30mins.
9. Heat up a pot of water. Then steam the buns in high heat for 12mins. If your bun is bigger, do steam longer.

Meat Floss

Few days back, I boiled some tonkatsu soup based for the ramen. This time I used the pork bones that come with meat and I felt so wasteful to throw them away but the taste of it is not yum enough to make us it.

So, after some thought, I decided to attempt making the meat floss with the pressure cooker. Do note that mine is a combo of pork and chicken (no exact ratio, just peel off all the meat).

Ingredients:

• roughly 600-800g cooked meat (pork and chicken)
• 5tbsp MSG free soy sauce
• 5tbsp crushed gula melaka
• 3/4tbsp MSG free oyster sauce
• a dash of pepper

*Note: my recipe tends to use a little bit more seasoning compared to the others coz the meat used is quite bland after being used to boil soup. I had previously KPT the meat for almost 2hrs and that will mean it is like boiling it for 4-5hrs or more.

Step:

1. Peel the meat out and try to shred them up a little.
2. Stir in all the seasoning and mix well.
3. Pour the meat into the pressure cooker pot.
4. Use high saute mode to quickly heat up the meat and let it absorb the seasoning. Stir constantly for about 5mins before switching to bake mode for 45mins.
5. When at bake mode, stir every 5-7mins once so to avoid the meat from getting burnt and for it to dry evenly.

Meat Floss Cheese Bun

There are some meat floss lying in the kitchen for a while, opened, and I remember seeing Han Ker post her cheese breadstick and decided to do a combo. Did some modifications to meat the weather condition here.

Ingredients:

• 254g Laucke Crusty White bread flour
• 175ml warm water (I uses 100ml warm from my thermos that is at 80C and 75ml from the filter)
• 1 tsp instant yeast
• 80% of the 1tsp salt (I want it less salty)
• 80% of the 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2 cup shredded cheddar
• 1/2 cup shredded parmesan
• 1 cup of plain flour (this depends, it was raining and was kinda humid, so the dough was rather too watery and soft to work on)
• 60ml water
• 12 tsp of meat floos
• mayonnaise 
• 1 tablespoon of milk to glaze

Methods:

1. Add in the yeast to the warm water and let it rise (I like to do this first to avoid wasting effort and material just in case the yeast is dead). This will take roughly 5-10mins).
2. Scoop out 2 tsp flour and mix with 60ml of water. Cook till it turn a little creamy, stirring occasionally. Quickly turn off the heat and still mix, it should get a little thicker.
3. Sieve the flour on to the mixing bowl. Add in salt and sugar and mix well.
4. Pour in the yeast water mixing and constantly stirring and add in the creamy stuff (it is supposed to be tangzhong with specific measurement, but mine is always this way... hehehe), all of it.
5. Mix the mixture till it forms a dough and continue to kneed till it is not sticky. If it is, add in little by little flour.
6. Leave it to rest for an hour. For me, while resting, I leave the mixing bowl covered with wet towel on top of a hot pot of water coz it was rather cold here yesterday. The dough requires some heat to help it double up.
7. After an hour, punch the dough, give it a little knead. Cut it to 8pcs and flatten them on the table top.
8. Scooped 1.5tsp of meat floss on each flatten dough, squeeze some mayo on it and fold up and form a ball. Leave it on the tray to rest for another 30mins. This time, I was cooking dinner and I leave it near to the stove to provide some heat.
9. Preheat the oven to 180C (if you using a brand new electric fan oven, should be 160C). While waiting, sprinkle the cheese mixture on top of the bun.
10. Place the bun into the oven. After 5mins, increase the oven temp to 200C (again, the electric fan oven should be 180c). After 10mins, glaze the top with milk and then bake for another 5mins.
11. Take it out and cool and devour... hehehe