First attempt in making siew pau with some leftover char siew fillings from last week. I cooked a total of more than 1kg of char siew fillings last week to make char siew pau for my family. They were complaining the previous batches were not enough. So, I made about 50 char siew pau and vegetable pau for them. Still, it was barely enough for everyone -.- 

On the bright note, I can now make quite good char siew pau from all the practices. Taste pretty awesome I must say. Reminder to self, must make another batch for photoshoot next round.

Back to this siew pau. I've never thought that it can be harder than making char siew pau. Obviously there are much work involved since it consisted of both the oil and water dough. I thought it is similar to karipap. My water dough was very soft and nice. But the oil dough was a little crumbly. It is supposed to be like that? After folding both doughs together, they are still pliable. Only when I rolled the dough flat to fill in the filling, I had to put a lot of force to roll it. Maybe because of that, the pleats bursted while baking.

The pastry is flaky but taste a bit bland. It doesn't look and taste like those siew pau from the stalls either. Mine was a bit whitish and not as brown as store bought. Maybe I should try a few more recipes to get it right. Overall, it is acceptable but much to improve (pastry wise)

Siew Pau Pastry

Source: mykitchensnippet.com

Oil dough

• 240g flour
• 120g shortening

Mix ingredients together and knead till a soft dough is formed. Rest the dough for 30 mins.

Water dough

• 240g flour
• 60g shortening
• 60g icing sugar
• 120ml water

Mix ingredients together and knead till a soft dough is formed. Rest the dough for 30 mins.

Char Siew Fillings

Source: Adapted from Table for 2 or more with adjustments. Below is my adjusted recipe.

• 1kg pork belly
• 5 tbsp light soy sauce 
• 3-4 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 2 tbsp Chinese rose wine
• 2 tbsp oyster sauce
• 180g sugar
• 1 tbsp cornstarch

* I use Chinese soup spoon for the above tbsp measurements.

Method:

1. Boil pork belly in a pot with 4 cups of water until cooked.
2. Fish out and let it cool. Keep 1 to 2 cups of pork boiling water for thickening later.
3. Cut pork belly into small tiny cubes.
4. Return to the pot and cook until it is fragrant and oil starts oozing out.
5. Add in all the seasonings, except sugar and cornstarch.
6. Cook until it looks dry.
7. Add sugar and cook until sugar melted.
8. Mix cornstarch with the remaining pork boiling water. Add into the pork to thicken the sauce.
9. Cook until the sauce is thicken.
10. Cool and keep in the fridge.

For detailed methods of folding the siew pau pastry and assembly, please refer to mykitchensnippets.com.

Pie crust (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 (315g) cup flour
• 1 tbsp (15g) sugar
• 1 tsp table salt
• 2 sticks (225g) unsalted butter, very cold

For detailed steps do refer to Smitten Kitchen. Here is my short-cut steps.

Methods:

1. Mix together flour, sugar and salt.
2. Put chopped cold butter into flour and mix together using fork or pastry blender.
3. Mix until the butter is the size of peas. Doesn't have to mix so thoroughly. It's ok if there is still small chunks of butter.
4. Pour a little cold ice water into the dough until the a ball is formed. 
5. Divide the dough into two, flatten and chill in the fridge at least an hour. 

Apple Pie Fillings

Ingredients:

• 4 apples (sliced)
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• lemon juice

Mix all ingredients together.

Assemble the pie

1. Take out half of the chilled from the fridge and let it sit in room temperature for a while.
2. Roll the dough to the size of your skillet or pie pan. Put the dough into the skillet.
3. Use a fork and go all over the pie crust.
4. Pour in apple pie fillings. Put a few cubes of cold butter on top of the fillings.
5. Wrap the sides of the crust inwards.
6. Brush the sides with egg wash or milk. Sprinkle with coarse sugar.
7. Bake in preheated oven at 180C until the crust turns golden, about 30-40 mins.