Monday, July 21, 2008

Steamed tau sar pau


FJ likes eating tau sar pau, so i normally keeps a pack of tau sar in the freezer and pau flour at hand for times when she have the urge for tau sar pau. I prepare a batch and freezes part of it ready for hunger pangs. Just take out of the freezer, steam them again and hey presto, you have got pau to eat.
I don't like making my own tau sar as I find the process too tedious so I buy them from bakery supplies shop for about RM3/- for 500 g which is enough to make about 25 pau. Tried making tau sar, but find the result not worth my effort. First you have got to boil the beans, grind them and then fry them slowly with oil in a wok.
Pau dough can be made quite easily in a kitchen machine, but if you dont have one, you can also use a food processor or knead the dough by hand.
I use the recipe from At Home With Amy Beh 2, as I find the quantity and method quite easy to work with. As with most of recipes, I follow it through once, and then I will adapt them to suit me.
Generally, most of the times, I will reduce the sugar and try to take short cuts. Sometimes it works but of cos there are also disasters.

My Tau sar pau :

Ingredients for the pau dough
500 g pau flour
2 tsp double action baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
100 g castor sugar dissolved with 100 ml lukewarm water (sugar can be reduced t0 90g)
50 g shortening
1 sachet instant yeast (11 g) dissolved with 150 ml lukewarm water, a little flour and sugar, set aside until frothy.

Filling :
500 g tau sar (divided into 25 equal portions)

Method :

1) Sieve flour, baking powder and salt into bowl.
2) Add in shortening, sugar mixture and yeast mixture. Knead well using the dough hook until mixture turns into a smooth dough.
3) Cover dough and leave aside to prove until double in bulk (about 45 mins).
4) Punch down the dough and divide into 25 pieces.
5) Flatten each piece of dough and wrap in a portion of the tau sar.
6) Place on a piece of greaseproof paper.
7) After wrapping up all the pieces of tau sar, place pau in steamer and steam over rapidly boiling water for about 10 mins.

When I am in a hurry, I just place all the pau ingredients into a mixing bowl, and knead. Use fine sugar instead of castor sugar. It works just as well, and is much cheaper than castor sugar. In fact, I do not use castor sugar even for cakes, as I find them too expensive as compared to fine sugar. In the old days when they do not have fine sugar, I would use normal sugar and grind a batch in my food processor to save costs. The dough can also be used for making char siew pau or vegetarin pau. A friend even makes rendang chicken pau!

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