Green Tea Bread Roll with Red Bean Filling - great look (and taste) with little effort

I love Japanese green tea, be it a hot cup of green tea, green tea frappucino, green tea macaron, green tea ice cream, green tea cake, the list is endless and I love them all. I suppose its  slight bitterness and unique aroma complement well with dessert.

During my trip to Japan late last year, I would try anything with green tea at any given opportunities. We had waffles filled with green tea mousse, green tea chiffon cake, green tea soft-serve ice cream, green tea tiramisu, choux pastry with green tea ice cream. I was in heaven!

Green tea tiramisu at the front and choux bun filled with green tea ice cream

I stockpiled few different types of green tea powder (matcha powder) from my Japan trip (where else would be better place to get them, but Japan, right). All packagings were in Japanese so I wasn't exactly sure if I had bought matcha powder or something else. I had to go with the illustrations on the packagings instead and trust my instinct that I bought the right products. To find out, I need to test it with some of the bakings. Green tea bread with red bean is one of my favorite that I would test with the matcha powder. Green tea and red bean are something that are made for each other. The match made in heaven.

Japanese takes great care of their food presentation as much as the cooking itself. People eats with their eyes and it even more so with Japanese. Food looks as great as well as its taste. Follow this philosophy, the somewhat nice-looking green tea bread is on my mind.

Excellent looking food with excellent taste
at Ryori Ryokan Hanaoka in Takayama, Japan where we stayed for two nights

The bread style I was thinking about was decorative bread roll with incisions that show its filling. This style of roll is quite common in Asia or Asian bakery store in Australia. I took some of the rolls to my work and my workmate gave me a 10-out-of-10  for the appearance:)

I based the recipe on the sweet roll but tweaked the recipe by substituting 20% of bread flour with wholewheat flour, using sourdough starter to add more flavour to the bread and reduce the yeast amount in the recipe. However, if you don't have sourdough starter, you can substitute this with sponge (mixture of yeast, flour and milk mixed prior to the mixing of final dough). More details is in the below recipe.

This bread would make a great breakfast roll, in my opinion. It has green tea with cafreine to kick start the morning and fibre from wholemeal flour and red bean. It is also a yummy roll to start a delicious day.

Here is recipe...

Green Tea Bread Roll with Red Bean Filling Recipe
make approx 12 bread rolls

Ingredients
Sourdough starter 150 g  (fed approx 12 hours the mixing)
Bread flour 460 g (increase this 535 g if you do not use sourdough starter)
Whole Wheat Flour 130 g (you can omit whole wheat and use all bread flour in the recipe)
Milk 210 g (3/4 cup) (increase this to 285 g if you do not use sourdough starter)
Egg 2 eggs
Salt 2 teaspoons
Butter 120 g, chopped
Sugar 60 g
Green tea powder (matcha powder) 1 tablespoon
Yeast 2 teaspoons (increase yeast to 1 tablespoon if you do not use sourdough starter)
Red bean paste (azuki bean paste) 150 - 200 g (store bought or make your own, recipe is here in my blog post)

Method
Mix starter, flours, milk, egg, sugar, green tea power, yeast and salt until all combined and form a dough ball. If mixing by hand, knead for about 10 -15 minutes until strong gluten is developed (the dough should pass a windowpane taste). If using a mixer, mix on a medium-high speed for 5 minutes until the dough pass windowpane test.

Note: if not using sourdough starter, mix 1 tablespoon of yeast, 10 g of sugar, 280 g of flour in the bowl. Pour in warm milk (285 g) and beat the mixture until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside for half and hour (the mixture should be really frothy and double in volume). Then, follow the step above.

Gradually incorporate butter into the dough while the mixer is running or kneading. The dough should be soft, silky and strong at this point.

Let the dough ferment in a bowl covered with plastic bag or cling wrap for about 1.5 to 2 hours until doubled in size.

Divide the dough into 12 portions, approx 100 g each and preshape them into balls and let them rest for 5 - 10 minutes.

Flatten the dough ball into round shape and put a heap tablespoon of red bean paste in the centre. Wrap and seal the dough to fully cover the red bean filling. Gently round the dough into ball (make sure the roll doesn't tear and red bean filling leak out).

Use a rolling pin, roll the dough gently (again, make sure the filling doesn't leak) into oblong shape about 0.50 cm thick.

Use a utility knife, making incisions on the shorter side of the dough (from left to right), and leave about half-a-cm on the edges, with 1-cm space between each cut. Be gently and precise when making incision, cut the dough to reveal the red bean filling, but do not cut the dough right to the bottom and it tears apart.

Using pastry scraper to help lifting the dough and turn it up side down, and at the same time, make sure that long side of the dough is now pararel to the kitchen bench.

Roll the dough like a jelly roll from top to bottom and seal the seam slightly. Gently bring two ends to meet in the middle. The roll should now resemble a donut ring without a hole or a tiny hole. 

Excuse the poor lighting and shadow, the bake happened at night!

Using pastry scraper to lift the roll and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper or baking sheet (you will need two trays for this recipe). Leave about 2-inch space between each roll as the dough will expand during the final proofing and during the bake.

Brush the rolls surface with egg wash and try to avoid brushing onto red bean filling as much as you can. Cover the trays with big plastic bags and leave at room temperature for approx 30 -45 minutes or until almost double in size.

Preheat the oven to 175c (convection oven).

When the rolls are ready, brush the dough surface again with eggwash before putting them into the oven.

Bake for 20 -25 minutes. Turn the tray half-way through baking for even browning.

Yummy breakfast

Submitting this post to YeastSpotting.

Vietnamese Noodle with Spring Rolls - Happy Chinese New Year to All

Follow up to my previous post, I’m still onto the Chinese New Year theme (well, the celebration usually lasts for days) and thinking about food that could be associated with good luck and wealth.

Another food item that came to my mind is spring roll. Because of its shape and colour that resemble the gold bar, it is considered an auspicious food for Chinese when it comes to celebration. Having spring rolls during Chinese New Year might get me chances to acquire some gold bars in the New Year. Umm, that would be lovely.

Spring roll pastry that I used, with 125 mm x 125 mm size

Apart from spring rolls, I was also thinking about noodle. Again, noodle is considered lucky food for Chinese. Because of its shape (long and continuing noodles), it represents longevity. It is not only served during Chinese New Year but also at any auspicious events, for example, wedding and house warming. So, here you go, the dish of longevity and wealth.

A dish that came to mind that could combine spring roll and noodle together is Vietnamese Noodle with Spring Rolls, fresh mints, herbs and vegetables. The noodles were also favoured by nuoc cham (Vietnamese dipping sauce) as dressing.

Vietnamese Vermicelli Noodle

The dish would also fit well with the hot summer spell we were experiencing this week.  It is also the dish that S and I love, it’s fresh and tasty and we can also use mints and herbs from our garden too.

Spring roll has always been my favourite and my friend's. It never fails to gain complements from my friends when I served this at any gatherings.  I suppose, hardly, anything can go wrong with deep fried pastry with the flavoursome filling, right? The spring roll filling is made of mince pork, prawn, carrot, celery and onion.  

Below are the recipes for spring roll noodle together with nuoc cham (Vietnamese dipping sauce). Don't be put off by the long list of ingredients, a lot of them are from pantry.

Vietnamese noodle with spring rolls recipe

Serve 4

Spring roll noodle ingredients

40 sheets spring roll pastry (small pastry size)

250 g mince pork or chicken (I prefer pork or mix of pork and chicken)

150 g raw prawn, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped finely

½ medium onion, chopped finely

1 large stick celery, chopped finely

1 large carrot, chopped finely

1 tablespoon peanut oil

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

2 tablespoons soy sauce

½ teaspoon black pepper

½ teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon corn flour

2 teaspoons sesame oil

Vegetable oil for deep frying spring roll

400 g dry rice vermicelli (Vietnamese variety)

2 cups bean shoot

A handful of fresh mint leaves, or Vietnamese mints

A handful of basil leaves (optional)

Crushed peanut (optional)

Method

Heat oil in a frying pan over medium high heat. Put garlic and onion into the pan and fry them until the onion become transparent, stirring occasionally.

Put mince pork and chicken (if using) into the pan and break them into small pieces. When the pork is half-cooked, put in prawns, carrots and celery and stir fry until carrots and celery are soften and prawns and mince are cooked. This will take 5- 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix oyster sauce, soy sauce, pepper, sugar, corn flour and one tablespoon of water in a small bowl. Stir until they are completely combined.

Reduce heat to low, pour oyster sauce and corn flour mixture into the pork mixture in the pan. Stir well to combine, the mixture will become thickened because of corn flour mixture.Turn off the heat and put sesame oil into the mixture, blend well.

Set the spring roll mixture aside.

Wrapping spring rolls

Put about 3 tablespoons of water in a small bowl and mix in 1 teaspoon of corn flour. Mix well and set aside. Take the spring roll pastry out of the freezer and follow the instruction on the packet (on how to handle the pastry).

Lay one sheet of pastry on a clean plate or chopping board, brush the edge of pastry lightly with water/corn flour mixture. Lay another sheet of pastry on top and seal to attach two sheets together (double lining the pastry).

Working on an angle corner (i.e. with the pointy corner towards you). Place a heap tablespoon of filling at the corner close to you, about an inch from the pointy corner. Lift the corner up to wrap the filling, roll the pastry until the filling is completely wrapped (the roll will now sit in the middle of pastry).

Brush the top right and left wings of pastry lightly with water/flour mixture, fold those two wings to meet and overwrap in the middle. Brush all pastry edges (two edges) with water/flour mixture, roll it up to enclose spring roll completely. Continue with the rest of filling and pastries.

Cooking vermicelli noodle by follow the instruction on the packet, drain and set aside.

Frying spring rolls - Fill a small pot or deep fry pan with canola oil  upto about 3 – 4 cm high and place it over medium-high heat. When the oil is ready (I like to test this buy dipping a chopstick into the oil, if there are bubbles around the chopstick, we are good to go), fry 4-5 spring rolls at the same time. Fry about few minutes on each side until they are golden brown.

Testing if the oil is ready by standing chopstick in the oil.
If there're small bubbles around the chopstick, you're good to go.

 

Drain spring rolls on kitchen towel and set aside.

Nuoc Cham Ingredients:

              

1 cup hot water

6 Tbsp fish sauce

4 Tbsp fresh lime juice, or lemon juice

4 tsp rice vinegar

4 Tbsp sugar

1 deseeded and finely chopped fresh red chili

3 cloves of finely chopped garlic

¼ cup finely sliced carrots (optional)

METHOD:

Combine water, rice vinegar and sugar in a big bowl, stir to combine and until sugar dissolved.,

Add the fish sauce, lime juice, chili, garlic and carrots into the mixture.

nuoc cham, Vietnamese dipping sauce

Assemble the dish:

Lay bean shoot (or any fresh vegies of your choice, it could also be lettuce leaves) in a big bowl, followed by cooked vermicelli noodle. Pile mint and basil leaves on top of noodle,

 Sprinkle crushed nuts. Arrange four-five spring rolls on top and serve with nuoc cham (Vietnamese dipping sauce) and more mint and basil on the side.

Enjoy the dish of longevity and wealth!
Gong Xi Fa Chai, Happy Chinese New Year

Coconut Sago Pudding with Fresh Corn (สาคูน้ำกระทิข้าวโพด) - a good reminder of my home

Sago pudding (สาคูน้ำกระทิ) is a typical dessert in Asia. Tapioca, black beans, mung bean, sweet pumpkin, corn (to name a few) are cooked in coconut milk flavoured with pandan. Pandan is the Asian cooking equivilant of vanilla.

I usually don't make much Asian desserts. I suppose I am more excited with something new to me, like western style dessert, something that I didn't grow up with.  It's the curiosity nature in me.

Until S and I went to Thai restaurant and we had the sago pudding and that he raved about how much he loved it (he actaully raved about it even before we went to this place, how beautiful the sago pudding was at this restaurant). Well, I told S that it was so easy and cheap to make and that I had no idea he loved this kind of dessert. It's something seriously easy and can be done at home.

We just started our communual vegie patch this year and the corn is now ready to be picked. So, it was perfect opportunity to make sago pudding with fresh corn. At first, the idea of growing your own vegies was very intriguing for me as well. Coming from Asian background, we don't grow anything because it is so cheap to buy and fresh produces are always available at a shop just around the corner. So, now that I started growing my own herbs and vegies, I just realized how easy it was and how good it was to have fresh produces whenever you want to.

Our vegie patch gaurd

Freshly picked corn cobs are so sweet and it works perfectly well with the sago pudding. It adds texture, sweet taste, more glutinous effect and colour to the pudding.

Fresh corns from our vegie patch

You can buy sago (small tapioca pearls) from Asian grocery store. The same go with pandan leaves, you can buy it fresh or frozen from the Asian store.
Sago pudding is a delicious dessert that is quick and easy to make. All you have to do is dump everything in the pot, let it boil, stir it occasionally and that's it. Here you go, the easiest yummy dessert you can do it at home.

I'm submitting this post to Weekend Herb Blogging hosted by Astrid at Paulchens FoodBlog.

Coconut Sago Pudding with Fresh Corn Recipe

สาคูน้ำกระทิข้าวโพด (sa-koo-nam-kra-ti-kao-pode)

INGREDIENTS
3 pandan leaves, tied into knot
1 cup (200 g) Tapioca (small pearl)
3 cups water
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup coconut cream
2 fresh corn cobs, remove the corn kernels, or 1 cup frozen corn kernels
pinch of salt

METHOD
1. Soak tapioca in a large pot filled with water (in the recipe) few hours before making the pudding. However, if you run out of time, you can skip this process and add more boiling time for tapioca.

2. Place the pot filled with tapioca over medium-high heat. Put the knotted pandan leaves into the pot and bring the mixture to the boil.

3. Once the mixture is boiling, reduce the heat to medium-low and continue to cook tapioca for another 5 - 8 minutes until the tapioca become translucent.

4. Put coconut cream and corn kernels into the tapioca mixture. Continue cooking for a further 5 -8 minutes until the mixture is sticky and the corn is cooked through.

5. Mix in sugar and salt.

6. Serve the pudding at room temperature or slightly warm, with a dash of coconut milk on top (optional).

Every spoonful of the dessert makes me feel nostagic
Aroy mak (very delicious in Thai)

Whole Wheat Green Tea Bread Bun with Red Bean Filling

The green tea bread bun with red bean filling is one of my favorite sweet bread that I would usually get from BreadTop, an Asian bakery chain. The slight bitterness from green tea complements the sweetness from red bean really well. They're perfect match to each other.

I've been wanting to make green tea bread for quite sometimes; to add to my collections of green tea icecream, green tea macarons:)). Now that I have red bean paste from my green tea ice cream I made the other week, which I also wrote in my blog here. It's perfect timing to get over my procrastination and get on baking my green tea bread buns.

I used recipe of white sandwich bread from Peter Rienhart's Bread Baker Apprentice as a base and added green tea powder into the dough mixture. This bread is more like an enriched bread than a sweet bread as it only contains small amount of butter, sugar and egg.  I chose this recipe over sweet bread recipe as I think the red bean paste will enrich the bread and make it sweet enough without adding extra sugar or fat. 

The flour mix I used is 80% whole wheat flour (12% protein) and 20% plain flour (10% protein). Though, it's made from whole wheat flour, they taste rather nice and soft. The red bean filling contributes to a softer and moist bread. You can also use the unbleached bread flour, which I believe will result in a softer bread bun.

I also like to think that this bread is a relatively healthy option as it contains 80% whole wheat flour (fibre, protien, vitamin E), green tea (antioxdiant, vitamin C), red bean (protein, fibre, iron). It's a nice healthy snack option.

I brushed the bread with milk, then butter, instead of egg wash. This resulted in less shinier crust.

This post is submitted to YeastSpotting.

Whole wheat green tea bread bun with red bean paste filling recipe
make 18 medium size bread buns
(adapted from white bread recipe from Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker Apprentice)

All-purpose flour

3.8 oz

110 g

3/4 cup

Whole wheat flour	15.2 oz	430 g	3 1/2 cups
Salt	0.38 oz	10 g	1 1/2 teaspoons
Sugar	1.5 oz	42 g	3 tablespoons
Yeast, instant dry	0.22 oz	6 g	2 teaspoons
Green tea powder			3 teaspoons
Egg	2.1 oz	58 g	1 large egg
Butter	2 oz	57 g	1/4 cup
Full cream milk, room temp	12 oz	375 ml	1 1/2 cups

Red bean paste

1 1/2 cups

Note: you can buy red bean paste from Asian store or easily make your own by using the recipe here, it's at the bottom of the blog.


You can also use bread flour to replace the mixture of whole wheat flour and all-purpose flour.

You can find green tea powder (matcha powder) at Japanese or Asian store. It comes in a small tub, about 6-cm height.

1. Mix together dry ingredients and milk in  a big bowl or mixer bowl. Pour in eggs and butter and mix until all the flour is absorbed and the doughs forms a ball.The dough should be soft and supple. Adjust the flour or milk as necessary to achieve the desire texture.

2. Mix on medium speed with dough hook or transfer the dough onto a lightly floured counter and begin kneading until achieve the dough pass the windowpane test. The dough will feel sticky and loose to start with but will start to come togehter once the gluten developed.

3. Transfer the dough into an oiled bowl. Rolling the dough around to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or bag.

4.Ferment at room temperature for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until the dough is double in sizes.

5. Remove the dough from the bowl and divide them into 18 equal pieces (each dough pieces should weight around 58 -60g). Roll them into balls and leave them to rest for 20 minutes (covered the dough with tea towel to prevent the skin drying out).

 

6. Gently flatten the dough into round piece (like pancake) approx 10-12 cm diameter. Place one heap teaspoon (almost the size of a golf ball) of red bean paste in the middle and wrap the dough around it. Rolling the dough into a bun shape. Continue with the rest of buns, covered other doughs with tea towel while shaping the other buns.

7. Place buns into loaf pans, baking tray or cake pan. Mist the dough surface lightly with spray oil. Cover the pans with plastic wrap or bag. Proof the dough at room temp for 60-90 mins or until almost double in size.







I flattened the dough a little bit and made about 1-cm incision around the edge of the bun


8. Preheat the oven to 190c (400f), brush the roll with egg wash (I brushed mine with milk followed by butter, this resulted in less shiny crust/surface).


9. Bake for 15 mins or until they're golden brown. Turn the trays/pans half way through the bake for even browning.


10. When they're baked, remove them from pans/trays immediately and let them cool on racks.

The red bean filling was almost dissappeared into the bread. After the dough ferementation and oven spring.

Relatively happy with the crumb

Green Tea Macarons

I discovered the green tea powder (matcha powder) by accident when I was at Fuji Mart, a Japanese Supermarket in Prahran.  I love green tea but never thought of making them by powder before. The first idea when I saw them was to mix it up with a store-bought vanilla ice cream to create a green tea ice cream.

This was over a year ago when I had no idea that making your own ice cream was not at all difficult. Now that I've become an ice cream snob (in addition to being a bread snob and macaron snob), an idea of mixing green tea powder through vanilla ice cream (though it tastes yummy) doesn't seem enticing, kinda put me off actually. Home-made green tea ice cream is so smooth, creamy, and super yummy, yet quite easy to do. I'll post recipe later...in future blog.

Enough of the detour to green tea ice cream, back to today's blog - green tea macarons. This is one of my favourites. The slightly bitter green tea flavour blend really well with the sweetness of macaron shells. Well, macarons are all about a balance of flavour, right.

Green tea macarons recipe

Macaron shell recipe (the recipe and instructions are here in my previous blog)

make 24-26 macarons (3-cm size)

In addition to the basic recipe, you will also need:

1 1/2 teaspoon green tea powder (matcha powder)

5-6 drops green food colouring

Instructions

Folllow the instuctions on here from my blog, omitting lemon zest from the shell ingredients  and adding grean tea powder into the shell mixture. You'll need to sift green tea powder together with icing sugar and almond meal.

"Green tea powder or matcha powder, you can find them in Asian store or Japanese store. It's small tub, approximately 6cm height. It costs about $7 (Australian Dollar)."

Green tea white chocolate ganache recipe

fill 24-26 macarons (3-cm size)

Ingredients

100 g white chocolate, chopped

80ml thickened cream (whipping cream with 35% fat content)

20g butter, cut into small chunk

1 1/2 teapoon green tea powder

Place white chocolate in a bowl.

Mix green tea powder with cream in a small pot over medium-low heat. Keep stirring the green tea cream mixture until the powder dissolved. Heat the cream mixture unitl it comes to the boil.

Pour the scant cream mixture over white chocolate and let it sit for about 30 seconds. Stir the chocolate until it is melted. Scatter butter over the chocolate mixture and stir until it dissolves.

Chill the ganache mixture until ready to use.  When ready, spread about 1/2 - 1 teaspoon of ganache into macaron shell before sandwich the shells together.

 "here you go, a yummy macaron, rich in green-tea goodness of vitamin C:)"