Friday, February 11, 2011

Crispy Dumplings (Kok Chai) 油角仔


Chinese New Year Dishes – Part 4(年菜之四)

Last Thursday (3rd February) was the first day of 2011 Chinese Lunar Year, the beginning of the Rabbit year. First day of Chinese New Year (年初一)to me is a very special day, because I was born on this day too! When I was small, my mum used to celebrate my lunar birthday together with family reunion dinner on this day. I always like to think that when the whole world is celebrating CNY, they are celebrating my birthday too! J

I was disappointed, but expected, to note Chinese New Year was not observed as public holiday here. It was a normal working for JS. After a long summer break, Ming Ray began his first school day of year-2 on this day too. With them away, we weren't able to have much family celebrations, but I still followed the Chinese culture, by giving Ming Ray a red packet "Ang Pao" before sending him to school. However, thanks to my ex-computing cooking group, I still had an enjoyable CNY lunch sharing cum a small birthday celebration on this day after all.

This time the lunch sharing was organized at Vera's house. Like the past lunch gatherings, other than each cooking member bringing a plate for lunch, the host would also give cooking demonstration on her specialty. To celebrate CNY, Vera had shown us the making of Kok Chai (油角仔) which was a "must have" snack during Chinese New Year in her home town in Hong Kong. This little crispy dumpling has peanut as fillings, it is also called peanuts puff. The deep fried golden colour and shape of the puff is similar to gold bullions and a symbol of wealth.

这是香港人过年必有的小吃,油角仔,因为包的是花生馅所以也叫花生角仔! 金黄金黄的油角,像铊铊黄金锭,很有新年好意头!

Crispy Dumplings (Kok Chai) 油角仔 - Featured in Group Recipes 11/02/2011

Commercial made mini Kok Chai - CNY gift set

Sharing the highlights of our lunch sharing and cooking demostration.




CRISPY DUMPLINGS(KOK CHAI)
Credit to Vera on recipe sharing

Ingredients:
Pastry
600g high ratio flour/Cake flour
(Chlorinated or high ratio flour, also known as Hong King flour, is special cake flour that is able to hold large amounts of liquid. This gives the cake produced a very soft crumb and a light, moist, fine texture.  They are also sweeter, have greater volume and a longer shelf life than cakes made with standard flour - extracted from Bake Info

If cake flour not available, you can also try to turn all purpose flour into cake flour using following method. I extracted this from Joy the baker. )
120 gm. margarine or butter or lard
120g cold water
2 large eggs

Filling:
300 gm. roasted peanuts – panfry skinned peanut, then remove the skins and chopped fine
80gm. roasted sesame
200 gm. caster sugar
20g shredded coconut
Oil for deep-frying(2 liters )

Method:
For pastry:
Using the food processor/bread maker, put margarine, flour and eggs and water into the machine until it becomes a dough. Rest for 30 minutes to allow dough fully absorb the oil, egg and water.

For filling:
Mix all the ingredients together.

To make the puffs pastry:
Use the pasta machine to roll pastry or hand roll using rolling pin into a thin sheet and use cookie cutter to cut into 1 3/4 - 2 inches rounds.

Put in 1/2 tsp of filling into the center of cut pastry and wrap up filling. Pinch edges neatly.

Heat up oil to 170 for deep-frying peanut puffs and fry till golden brown using medium heat. It takes about 8 minutes.Remove and leave them on cooling rack.


our Hong Kong born host - Vera
Let it completely cool before storing into containers.

Tips:
Don't knead the dough too long will make dumplings skin not crispy but chewy. Rest dough for 30 minutes to allow dough fully absorb the oil, egg and water. This will make crispy dough skin when deep fry.
油角仔

皮材料 :
600g低筋麵粉
120g菜油或豬油
120g水
二粒蛋

餡材料 : (份量隨個人喜愛)

80g芝麻 (用慢火炒香待涼)
300g有衣花生
20g椰絲
200g砂糖

做法 :
  1. 用白鑊炒有衣花生, 去衣, 待涼後捣碎,(有衣花生不易炒燶) 將花生,芝麻及糖拌勻,備用。
  2. 將麵粉篩入大碗中,加入菜油(猪油),拌勻 逐少加入水 ,搓和成耳垂般软的面团,用濕布蓋住休息半小时。
  3. 在台上灑上麵粉,取出一小份粉糰,用麵棍壓薄,用杯子印成小圓模取起小圓模,包入適量餡料,對摺成半月形後再用力壓實.  用手指拉出邊位再屈摺入, 每摺入一次就再拉出一次直至尾部為止,收口鎖邊 (Crimping)。
  4. 烧热油后約170 ℃,转中温,炸到金黄香脆(約八分鐘)。放涼架或用廚房紙瀝乾油份待涼即成.
貼士搓粉糰時不能太用力,搓至粉糰有筋性,油角便不鬆化;搓完更要靜置半小時,讓其完全吸收豬油、蛋汁及水,炸起來才鬆化。

24 comments:

  1. Looks so delicious! A happy new year and happy birthday!

    ReplyDelete
  2. OMG I love this recipe. I would never think of cooking dumplings

    ReplyDelete
  3. Aw, that looks so fun, and those dumplings look delicious. I'm Korean so we don't celebrate chinese new year so growing up I was always jealous of my other asian friends who all did! It's good to see traditions kept alive.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sounds great. Reminds me of coconut gin-dui in Hawaii!

    ReplyDelete
  5. These looks fantastic! They resemble curry puff but only difference is the filling. So yum...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Yin,

    Most probably you can use fresh milk provided you add more flour as fresh milk makes the dough quite wet and diluted. Nothing harm in trying, as long as the dough comes together after adding flour, it's done...Hope this helps....

    ReplyDelete
  7. These are absolutely beautiful! My mom doesn't make crispy ones. Happy Chinese New Year to you! I'm a rabbit, as well!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Roxan:
    Strange, over here our Korean community celebrate the same New Year with Chinese community too. To my understanding only Japanese celebrate 1st Jan as new year, other Chinese and Korean celebrate Lunar New Year.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Dear Hester (The Chef Doc):
    Happy Rabbit year to you too! Nice to know you enjoyed your CNY with red packets and fireworks.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Treat and Trick:
    Yup, the shape like curry puff with potato and meat fillings, not sure the puff pastry the same with this?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Joy, Brandie and Belinda:
    Thanks for visiting, hope you have a great V day celebration next week.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Wonderful recipe. I can't wait to try it.

    We invite you to share this post and some of your favorite posts on Food Frenzy.
    Please check out our community at http://blogstew.net/foodfrenzy

    ReplyDelete
  13. This looks wonderful
    Thanks for liking my photos of Kerala and Goa etc at Thomas blog Anoop Negi Eye Poppers

    http://kitchen-morph.blogspot.com/2011/01/anoop-negis-eye-poppers.html

    ReplyDelete
  14. Bellissimi, complimenti.
    Saluti da Milano Italy
    da Giulia (http://cucinainmusica.blogspot.com/)

    ReplyDelete
  15. Giulia:
    Grazie per i complimenti, si prega di venire di nuovo.

    ReplyDelete
  16. That look so yummi and great recipe, thanks for share.

    faridawinarni71.co.cc
    http://pregnancymomy.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  17. Hi Yin's Kitchen

    I would like to use ur recipe but what is high ratio flour?

    Blessings
    Priscilla Poh

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Priscilla,
      Thanks for visiting my site. I'm glad you ask me this question.

      When Vera thought us this recipe, we asked the same question, but we were given the source of the flour to get from in Auckland and I wasn't bother to find out the different of this flour with standard flour.

      Only when I came back to Malaysia I realised each country has different names for flour used.

      To clarify the flour name, I did a internet check and found out the answer. I have update the recipe with that definition.

      If the name of high ratio flour or Hong King flour not common in your country then use cake flour or Low-gluten flour will serve the same purpose.

      Delete
    2. Thanks Yin for the reply.

      Ya, in Singapore, we hv all kinds of flour but not Hong King flour. At first glance,I thought was a typo error from u as I mistook Hong King flour for Hong Kong flour.

      But since cake flour can be used, I think Hong Kong flour which I used it normally to make traditional pau or chinese steamed buns shud work as well.

      Once I've tried this recipe, will let u know results.

      Delete
    3. Dear Priscilla:
      I went to check out my near by cake ingredient shop and came to know about Hong Kong flour. At that moment I was wondering whether the site has made the typo erro as what you mentioned too.

      If you wish to make your own cake flour, just discover this good link that show step by step to turn all purpose flour to cake flour.
      from Joy the baker.

      http://joythebaker.com/2009/09/how-to-make-cake-flour/

      Delete
    4. Dear Yin

      Oh sorry I just noticed ur msg about ur enquiry with nearby shop concerning Hongkong flour.

      Anyway, since cake flour is so easy available in S'pore, I will not make my own cake flour. In S'pore every type of flours is easily available.

      I hv not used ur recipe yet. However, I have alot of leftover filling from making pulut panggang recently, hence, thinking of using filling in ur Kok Chai pastry.

      I will let u know of results once I hv tried out recipe.

      Meanwhile, many thanks for replies.

      Blessings
      Priscilla Poh

      Delete
  18. Just wanted to let you know that I am doing a Dumpling Link Roundup and I included these babies on my list of recommended treats! You can see the post here:
    http://www.spiceordie.com/2012/05/throwback-tuesday-dumplings-potstickers-ginger-limeade/

    Cheers :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Angela:
      Thanks for dropping by and sharing this post in your blog, much appreciated.:-)
      Just submitted another dumpling link to your site.

      Delete

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails