Happy Hedgehogs!

 The rain/snow/slushy is making it a terribly nasty day after such a beautiful weekend. Hope everyone is having a great day!  Some comfort foods for today, a barbeque chicken steamed bun, tamagyaki, kiwi slices and a edamame, broccoli, and grape tomato salad. It has itailen herbs sea salt and a little garlic tossed with olive oil. Its simply but yummy. Have a great afternoon everyone!

Steamed bun recipe!

Okay, since I can't figure out how to neatly place my photos around my text I apologize if the pictures are out of order. My recipe is not exact either, so you may have to tweak it yourself at home. Recipe: 1 cup of Hungry jack pancake mix, (Extra light and fluffy is what I used) add about half a cup of water and mix until it looks like pancake batter. Then add a pinch of salt, and get some all purpose flour out.  You are going to want to add AP flour until you get a nice firm non sticky dough. I don't know how much it took, but it should look like the roll in the first picture. Knead for about ten minutes to get all the lumps and bumps out. This also helps give you a uniform color.  Roll into a baguette shape and cut into four peices.  I didn't take photos of me shaping any buns, sorry! I also want to explain the tin foil in the pot. I don't have a proper steamer, but to keep the buns from sitting in water I just balled some tin foil up. Set it in the pot and it keeps them elevated and the steam can get to all sides. 

                                                       

I filled the buns with a chicken and brocolli mixture and let them steam for about 20 minutes. I did cook the chicken through before steaming, just because raw chicken in dough could cause some serious contamination. I shaped them into a hedgehog, pig, bear and one was a traditional pleated bun.  Its really easy, like working with playdough.  Sorry the recipie isn't exact! But working with the pancake mix cuts out the need for yeast and letting it sit 2 hours to rise. There are several really great recipies online, but this is my own quick and easy version. If you try it out, let me know! I'm sure you can use any other kind of pre packaged pancake batter, but the light and fluffy seems to work the best for me. Hope you are all having a great weekend!