Crispy Char Siew Pastry(aka Char Siew Bao) 脆皮叉烧酥

Finally I managed to tune the outcome to 80% of my own satisfaction after a few round of experiments. Experiments result shown that oil dough using pork oil( I produce it from raw pork oily part) produce the best Chinese pastry skin. By the way, I'm using pastry margarine instead of shortening as I was told that shortening is very unhealthy( mostly is chemical/wax). For the filling, I'm making it from scratch instead of using ready made char siew. I seasoned the raw pork meat cube for at least an hours( this round over night) so that the it taste well. My past few experiments failed on the preparing the good filling taste due to the char siew seasoning sauce. It tasted different after cook which is not under my control. The filling taste well during cooking but it become very salty after that. I believe it is due to the meat that I seasoned. It release additional taste after it cool. At the end I switch to another brand of char siew sauce and this round it doesn't alter the taste that I tuned during cooking.

Third Attempt:

Started to master the wrapping method after third trial. However, the filling still need to fine tune. New filling batch but still not able to tune well. The taste during cooking is not the same as after cook. Really make me frustrated!

Second Attempt:

Slightly improved wrapping method. Skin no longer as thick as first trial. This trial was using the same filling as first batch after I  cooked it again. However, it still tasted salty!

First Attempt:

I had numerous of experiences on pastry making but this is my first time experimenting with the Chinese pastry. The water dough look so sticky when mixing up the batter and it doesn't look like a dough at all. Then regarding the kneading method to make this pastry, I did google a lot and referring to some books to try it.  It doesn't results a satisfy outcome. My hubby said the skin is thick and filling is salty. Besides that, my skill on wrapping the skin is really terrible, I do not know how to wrap it well. Almost all center of the pastry are burst out as the pastry closing doesn't wrap well.

Pastry Skin.

Steps:

1. Rub all dry ingredient(except sugar, syrup and water) until it become breadcrumbs.

2. Dissolved sugar and syrup in water and add to the breadcrumb.

3. Mix until become smooth dough.

4. Cover and rest for 15mins.

5. Divide into 9 balls or 18 balls depending on which ingredients size you choose.

Steps:

1. Rub margarine gradually into the flour to form a soft dough. Cover and rest it for 15mins.

2. Divide into 9 balls or 18 balls depending on which ingredients size you choose.

Steps to make pastry skin

1. Wrap 1 ball from oil dough with 1 ball from water ball.

2. Roll flat the dough ball and roll it back into ball form. Repeat for multiple time to form the water and oil layer for crispy skin.

3. Roll the ball flat and wrap in the char siew meat ingredients. Shape into desire pattern.

4. Brush the skin with egg and sprinkle some sesame on top of it.

5. Bake with 180-200C until it turn golden.

6. Brush the skin with butter while the Char Siew Pastry still hot.