Peter's Greek Meatballs and Baozi

The two elements are not connecting with each other as you may know, but these two food items are the recent components on the top of my must-do list. I've wanted to try out the lemony soup with meatballs ever since I read it on one of Cuisine magazines covered. The chef in the magazine use chicken mince and chicken liver instead of minced beef. Now that Peter my dear Greek mate in Sydney had posted his own childhood comfort food himself, Giouvarlakia, I really kick myself out. I can imagine the lemony sauce in soup, how wonderful it will taste!



With ingredients are handy around the garden and farm, I made this soup for breaking the fasting. I just made them an hour before the sunset, so the soup will still be warm and the lemon-egg sauce will not scramble by the time of serving. I only could taste it when it's to be served and I thought there's something missing. I re-read the recipe again and realized Peter does not use garlic. Very well, I sprinkle garlic salt instead and made a small amount of candied lemon. I use the candied lemon as the garnish and splash a little bit of lemon sauce into the soup. I also use fresh dill which just sprang out in the garden to give a little bit more flavour. Then, I'm done. Sitting there as happy as a lark. Thank you, Peter. The soup is delicious!



Now, about baozi. Recalling the childhood comfort food, my mother used to make steamed buns stuffed with the mixture of coconut and palm sugar as she called them roti kukus (steamed buns, baozi). I searched the engine and talked to mbak Ine about roti kukus but it seems there's a misinterpretation somewhere on roti kukus for bolu kukus (steamed cake). Mbak Ine says that Javanese people often refers roti (bread) as cake. So, if they say roti kukus it may mean steamed cake and not steamed buns. How confusing!

After searching my heart out through the google search engine, I came across a recipe which I recognized the exact recipe that I want: BAOZI. A ha! Here it is. Jump happily, I read and re-read the recipe, which was impossible for me to make it at that moment. The recipe calls for proofing the yeast, kneading, then rising, punch, rising again, and so on before it reaches the end. I will need a good whole day to make that.

And, yes I did it the next day. It took really is a day long!



The initial process is just like your way on making ordinary bread, but the only difference is that the dough should be sprinkled with baking powder. I guess, this is the good way to make the dough lighter. I doubled rising period. I think the result is excellent. My dough feels so soft and it is not wet.

When doing the point (12), I divide one long roll into 6 pieces, but when I mold them, the buns become quite unpleasantly big. I am not really good at pinching and I think that the should-be-flower-shape bao is not pretty at all. Some of them are collapsing to the side which is not so impressive. Then, I decided to divide 10 pieces for the other roll. Quite manageable, I think.



Steaming is an important part. I read the instruction carefully and I do not want my buns become wrinkled and deflatten when they are removed from the steamer. So, it is a good trick to let the steam subside and keep the buns in the steamer before removing them to get contact to the air outside the steamer, which of course is much colder.

I know, patience is the key here, and I know you can do it, too! If you're not trying it out, you won't know how much patience you've got he he he...



As to the filling, I make red bean paste as per instruction. Next time, I'm going to stuff these with the mixture of shredded coconut and palm sugar, just like what my mother and I made when I was little.



Well, enjoy!