The Ultimate Rice Cooker (65 page)
MACHINE: Medium (6-cup) or large
(10-cup) rice cooker; on/off only
CYCLE: Regular
YIELD: About 20 rice balls
1 cup sticky rice, soaked in cold water for several hours or overnight
2 dried shiitake mushrooms
1 tablespoon dried shrimp
1 large carrot
1 whole canned bamboo shoot or ¼ cup sliced canned bamboo shoots
1 pound lean ground chicken, lean ground pork, or half lean ground beef and half lean ground turkey
1 teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 teaspoons Asian sesame oil
1 tablespoon Shaoxsing wine (available in Chinese markets) or medium-dry sherry
Pinch of sugar
2 to 3 large lettuce, Napa cabbage, or chard leaves (stems discarded), for lining steamer basket
1. Drain the rice thoroughly. Spread it on a plate and set aside.
2. Place the mushrooms and dried shrimp in a microwave-safe container just large enough to hold them. Barely cover them with water, then cover the container tightly with plastic wrap. Microwave on high for 2 minutes. Let cool and drain, reserving the soaking liquid. (Or let the mushrooms and shrimp soak in hot water for 30 minutes to 1 hour.)
3. Fill the rice cooker bowl one-quarter full of water, close the cover, and set for the regular cycle. If the water boils before you are ready to cook the pearl balls, flip the switch to the Keep Warm position (switch back for cooking).
4. Meanwhile, peel the carrot, cut into chunks, and finely chop in a food processor. Measure ¼ cup and reserve the rest to use as a garnish. Chop the bamboo shoot in the same manner. Measure ¼ cup and reserve the rest for another use.
5. When the mushrooms are cool enough to handle, trim off and discard the tough stems. Chop the mushrooms and puree them in a food processor with the shrimp and 2 tablespoons of the reserved soaking liquid. Add an additional tablespoon of the soaking liquid, if needed, to obtain a chunky puree.
6. Place the ground meat in a medium-size bowl. Add the chopped carrot and bamboo shoot and the mushroom-shrimp puree. Add the remaining ingredients except the rice and lettuce leaves. Gently mix with a wooden spatula or a large spoon to blend the mixture thoroughly without packing it down.
7. Line the bottom of the steamer basket with the lettuce, cabbage, or chard leaves. Shape the meat mixture into small meatballs, each about the size of a walnut or smaller. As each meatball is shaped, roll it in the rice so that it is covered as thoroughly as possible. Arrange as many meatballs as can fit, without touching, on the lettuce leaves in the steamer tray. (Leave a little space between the meatballs. Their rice coating expands as it cooks, and they will stick together if they touch.) Place a pinch of the reserved chopped carrot on top of each pearl ball.
8. Place the steamer basket over the boiling water in the rice cooker and close the cover. Set a timer for 12 minutes, and steam until the meatballs are cooked through; cut into one meatball to test (the exact cooking time will depend on the size of your meatballs). Repeat until all of the meatballs are formed and cooked. Serve hot.
barbecued pork buns (char siu bau)
Bau
buns, encasing a filling of
char siu
pork, are a popular dim sum item in Cantonese restaurants. They were a specialty in the nineteenth-century Cantonese dim sum restaurants catering to the tastes of English merchant traders and Russian immigrants. The traditional way to cook them is to steam them until fluffy white, a snap in the stacked rice cooker baskets. For that real Chinatown flavor, you must buy the meat ready-made from an Asian grocery in the deli department (hanging next to the Peking ducks), where it is cooked the traditional way—in a hanging oven. There is an age-old technique to shaping the buns, usually made with a homemade yeast dough, and it will take you a few tries to get them right. In lieu of the homemade yeast dough, we used commercial frozen bread dough and it was a smash hit! These buns will be a bit smaller than those you buy in Chinatown bakeries.
MACHINE: Large (10-cup) rice cooker ;
on/off only
CYCLE: Regular
YIELD: 24 buns
SAUCE
1½ cups chicken stock
1½ tablespoons oyster sauce
1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine (available in Chinese markets) or medium-dry sherry
1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 teaspoons ketchup
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
FILLING
4 cups finely diced prepared
char siu
(Chinese barbecued pork)
½ cup diced yellow onion
Two 27-ounce packages Bridgeford frozen dinner rolls (each package has 3 loaves of 6 pull-apart rolls), thawed
1 large egg white beaten with 1 teaspoon water and ¼ teaspoon sugar until foamy, for egg glaze
1.
Make the sauce:
Place the stock, oyster sauce, wine, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, ketchup, and sugar in a heavy saucepan; stir to combine. Place ¼ cup of the mixture in a small bowl and whisk in the cornstarch; pour back into the saucepan. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until thickened and smooth. The sauce should be the consistency of thin mayonnaise. Remove from the heat and cool in the refrigerator.
2.
Make the filling:
Place the pork in a medium-size bowl. Add the onion and sauce and mix with a spoon. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours but no longer than overnight.
3. Meanwhile, let the bread dough rise according to the package directions. Turn the risen bread dough out onto a clean wooden work surface. Use 1½ dinner rolls for each bun, flattening them together into a thick round. Place the round of dough on the work surface (don’t shape on cool marble or ceramic because it will stiffen the dough). With the palm of your hand, press down on the center and rotate your palm, spiraling out from the center. The dough will grow into a 3- to 4-inch-diameter circle (not lopsided, please) with a pretty spiral pattern radiating from the center like a flower. Don’t use any flour. Repeat with the remaining rolls.
4.
Assemble the buns:
Cut twenty-four 3-inch squares of parchment paper and place them on a large baking sheet to hold the filled
bau
. Place a heaping tablespoonful (we use an oversized spoon that holds about 2 tablespoons) of the chilled filling in the center of a round of dough; don’t overfill or the filling will fall out. Bring the dough up over the filling and, holding the two sides between your thumb and third finger, twist the edges to encase the filling. Place the bun, twist side down, on a parchment square on the baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough rounds and filling, spacing them at least 4 inches apart. Cover loosely with a damp tea towel and let rise at room temperature until puffy, about 45 minutes.
5. Fill the rice cooker bowl one-quarter full of water, close the cover, and set for the regular cycle. If the water boils before you are ready to steam the buns, flip the switch to the Keep Warm position (switch back for cooking), but you want a vigorous boil with lots of steam for these.
6. Brush each
bau
with the egg glaze. Arrange the
bau
, each on its own square of parchment, in two steamer baskets; we do the steaming in two batches, so it is 6
bao
per basket. Place the stacked baskets over the boiling water in the rice cooker and close the cover. Set a timer to 18 minutes and steam until the
bao
are big and puffy. Don’t remove the cover before 15 minutes have elapsed; open the cover away from yourself to prevent burns. Remove the
bau
from the steamer basket by slipping a spatula under the parchment paper; place on a wire cooling rack.
7. Serve the
bau
the day they are cooked, warm or at room temperature, or freeze in plastic freezer bags for up to 2 months. Reheat in a microwave (no need to thaw) for 2 to 3 minutes for a quick dinner.
Plain steamed breads are good served with roasted Peking duck, roast ham, roast or fried chicken, and even roast suckling pig. Being a breadmaker, Beth couldn’t resist trying a steamed bread in the tiered baskets of the rice cooker, just like she has seen in China town. While the rolls cook, you can watch the steam swirl around and the rolls rise into a piece of edible sculpture. This flower reminds us of a chrysanthemum. Be sure to use bleached white flour—since that will make the whitest rolls—in combination with some bread flour, which will make a springy dough suitable for the steaming. Since the rolls are not baked in an oven, there will be no crust. The rolls are pure white, fluffy, and tender-soft from the first bite to the last. You can mix the dough in a bread machine, as it is written here, or by hand. While these are usually eaten with other dim sum, they are also good with jam and a cup of tea. Vital wheat gluten is sold in supermarkets near the flour as a bread dough enhancer.
MACHINE: Large (10-cup) rice cooker ;
on/off only
CYCLE: Regular
YIELD: 10 steamed rolls
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons water
1½ tablespoons vegetable oil or Asian sesame oil
½ cup bread flour
2¾ cups bleached all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons mild honey
1 tablespoon vital wheat gluten
1 teaspoon salt
1½ teaspoons bread machine yeast, fast-acting yeast, or SAF fast-acting yeast, or 1 teaspoon active dry yeast
Unbleached all-purpose flour, for dusting
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons Asian sesame oil or nonstick cooking spray
1. Place everything except the last 3 ingredients in a bread machine according to the order in the manufacturer’s instructions. Program for the Dough cycle; press Start. When the full rising cycle has finished and the machine beeps, open the lid and gently deflate the dough. Close the lid and let the dough rise a second time (set a timer for 45 minutes); this second rise makes for a nice light texture.
2. Gently deflate the dough and turn it out onto a work surface sprinkled with a few teaspoons of unbleached flour and the baking powder. Flatten the dough slightly with your palms and begin gently kneading it; the dough will effortlessly pick up the flour–baking powder mixture from the work surface. The flour mixture will be incorporated quickly while you knead and the dough will be smooth and springy to the touch. Cover the dough ball with a clean tea towel and let rest on the work surface for 15 minutes to relax the dough.
3. Cut ten 3½-inch squares of parchment paper. Divide the dough into 2 equal portions. Cover one portion with the tea towel. With a rolling pin, roll 1 portion of dough into a 12 x 8-inch rectangle. Leaving a 1-inch border all around the edges, brush the surface evenly with 1 teaspoon of the sesame oil or coat it with a film of the cooking spray. Roll up jelly-roll fashion, starting from the long edge, and pinch the seam to seal. The cylinder will be only 1½ to 2 inches in diameter. Using a sharp chef’s knife, with a gentle sawing motion, cut the cylinder into 10 equal portions, each separate portion being about 11.8 inches thick, taking care not to squash the cylinder. Repeat with the remaining portion of dough.
4. To shape the flower rolls, press 2 separate slices side by side with the cut sides facing front and back, rather than up and down. Hold a chopstick horizontally and gently press it down the center of the two slices, all the way down to the work surface; you will push out and fan the rolled edges (this area will puff and expand more during the steaming to create the open flower petal effect) while attaching the two slices at the same time. Place each roll on a square of parchment and set in the steamer basket, leaving at least 1 inch of space between them on all sides; 6 flower rolls will fit easily in each basket. Cover loosely with the tea towel draped over the basket while forming the other rolls.
5. Let the rolls rise at room temperature until puffy and doubled in bulk, 30 to 40 minutes. (The rolls can be refrigerated on a baking sheet before this last rise, covered tightly with a double layer of plastic wrap, leaving the rolls to rise slowly and be steamed up to 8 hours later, if necessary. Bring the pans to room temperature and let rest for 20 minutes while preheating the water in the rice cooker.)