~ Level: hard ~ Time: 1-1.5 hours ~ Budget: medium to high.
A delicious flavour combination of Asian spices wrapped in a pan fried flour bun. Although this recipe is not the easiest one and takes quite some time to prepare, it is completely worth it. I've been asked many times to cook this dish again for friends and family. If you're a well experience kitchen prins(es), you will enjoy making this. If you're not so experienced in the kitchen, give it a go anyway, but on a day where you have lots of time. You will see that it pays off ;-)
Vegan Buns with Daikon, Tofu and Shiitake Mushrooms
Ingredients ~ 12 buns
For the filling:
350g daikon radish
100g tofu
1 tsp Chinese five spice
1 tsp cornstarch
olive oil
100g shiitake mushrooms
4 scallions
1 small chilli pepper
2 cloves of garlic
1 thumb of ginger
salt and pepper
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
½ hoisin sauce
For the dough:
600g flour
300ml boiling water
120ml cold water
1 tsp salt
Method
1. We will start by preparing the dough. Put the flour together with the salt into a medium bowl. Add the boiling water while stirring with a fork. Then add the cold water, keep stirring. Once there is no more dry flour, knead by hand to form a ball. You will notice that the dough is quite sticky. DO NOT add more flour, but let it rest for 20 minutes in the bowl, covered with a towel. After that you will see that the dough is less sticky and easier to work with. Knead for 3 minutes on a flour dusted surface. Divide into 12 little balls and let it rest for another 30 minutes.
2. During the wait times for the dough, you can start preparing the filling. First of all, put some water to boil in a sauce pan. Grade the radish in long strips. Blanche them in the boiling water for 10 minutes to get rid of the bitter taste. Afterwards soak them in cold water to cool down. When cold, squeeze the water out with your hands and place the radish strips in a large mixing bowl.
3. Take the tofu out of the packaging and press it with a tofu press for a few seconds to drain as much liquid as possible. TIP: if you don't have a tofu press, you can put the tofu block between 2 cutting boards, and put heavy books on top for a few minutes. After pressing, cut the tofu block in half lengthwise. Mix the five spice with the cornstarch and cover the tofu with this mixture. Add the olive oil to a frying pan and fry the five spice tofu in it. When crispy, take out of the pan, cut in thin strips and add to the bowl with the radish. Also add the oil from the pan to the bowl.
4. Next, slice up the mushrooms, cut the scallions in small rings and the chili pepper in small strips. Mince the garlic and ginger. Add all of these ingredients to the large mixing bowl. Lastly, add salt and peper, sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil and hoisin sauce to the bowl as well and mix everything together.
5. Once both dough and filling are ready, you can start forming the buns. Take a ball of dough and spread it out into a flat circle with a small rolling pin or with your hands. Add a scoop of filling in the middle and pull the side of the dough over the filling to connect all parts in the middle and seal the top. Shape it with your hands into a flat circular shape.
6. Heat up some olive oil in a frying pan. Fry a few buns at the same time on both sides. Remove from the heat and serve warm. As a snack it can go simply with hoisin sauce and/or sriracha mayo; as a main you can serve it with egg fried rice and/or veggies (for example zucchini) fried up in the pan with soy sauce.
Wine pairing
There are lots of different savoury flavours present in these buns, which immediately calls for an acidic wine. There are also some sweet flavours, so in this case a german Riesling would work very well. It has a light body and a sweetness level that will both match but not overpower the flavour profile of these buns.
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