Sichuan Pepper Salt Pastry – 椒鹽酥皮 (jiāo yán sū pí )

 

 

 

This pastry is considered a type of mooncake. A nice change from the regular sweet mooncakes we usually get during Mid Autumn Festival.

 

Amount:

Makes a tray of 18 pieces

 

 Ingredients:

Wet Pastry Dough
All Purpose Flour	200g
Lard	60g
Castor Sugar	30g
Warm Water	80g
Flaky Pastry Dough
All Purpose Flour	200g
Lard	100g
Stuffing
Cornflour/Potato Flour	80g
Plain sugar	50g
Sichuan Pepper Salt	5g
Black Pepper	5g
Salt	4g
Roasted Sesame Seed	15g
Salad Oil	40g

Method (The numbers are according to the pictures in the original site):

 

1. First, render some lard from pork fat. Get some fat trimmings from your butcher, cut them into small pieces, rinse and place them in a wok with a small amount of water over a low fire.

[Tip 1: Don’t panic when you hear the fat sparking and spitting, this is normal. Be careful, the oil may randomly spit a piece of fat at you.]

 

2. The pieces of fat should be small enough that you can easily picked it up with chopsticks. You may render the fat the day before making the actual pastry.

 

3. 5 catty (1 catty = 600g) of pork fat would yield a large wok of lard.

 

4. Once you have the lard, knead the two types of dough and let them rise separately for 20 minutes.

 

5. Split the dough into 20g balls and let them rise a further 15 minutes. Next, flatten out a Wet Pastry Dough into a circle. Place a ball of Flaky Pastry Dough in the middle of the circle and wrap it up.

 

6. Roll the dough balls until they are smooth and keep them under a cling wrap to prevent the skin from drying out.

 

7. Flatten the dough ball into a long oval.

 

8. Roll up the flattened dough into a cigar and let it rise under cling wrap for a further 15 minutes.

 

9. Cook the cornflour until fragrant and slightly golden. Let it cool before mixing it with the other Stuffing ingredients.

 

[Tip 2: To make your pastry more delicious, toast the sesame seeds and crush them first before adding them to the stuffing.]

 

10. Adjust the stickiness level of your stuffing with egg whites.

 

11. With a chopstick, make a deep indentation in the middle of your cigar dough.

 

12. Fold the halved dough together like a small ingot.

 

13. Flattened the ‘ingot’.

 

14. Wrap the dough around the stuffing.

 

15. Flatten the dough ball so that it’s more like a disc than a ball. Once you’ve wrapped up all the stuffing, you can immediately bake them 200 degrees celsius.

 

16. To make it look more charming, put three dots of red die on each pastry. You may also brush egg yolk on the surface to make it look shiny!

 

17. You’re adviced to bake at 180 degrees celsius for about 25 minutes if you’ve used egg wash. Make sure to pay close attention during the last few minutes of baking. Don’t burn the egg wash, a jade white appearance is more charming.

 

18. 18 pieces fits a standard tray just nicely.

 

19. Make sure to protect your pastries properly and don’t let them fall down in the car like I did!

 

 

[Gumihou: The writer of this recipe is so funny!]

 

The original recipe can be found at xiachufang, here you can find picture instructions for your convenience.

This recipe is mentioned in The Feast, Chapter 85. 

Have fun cooking and eating!

 

 

 

 

  ^_^

Translated by Gumihou from kitchennovel dot com.

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