momcooks.dadcooks.

DAD SAYS: Time is hard, no doubt about it but you don't have to sacrifice good eats in spite of all this, right? How about whipping your appetite with some nifty chinese-inspired down-home cooking such as this mami and siopao [chicken noodle soup and pork buns] combo? Sounds good! DAD COOKS: The buns were really easy to make since I used store-bought dough! Now for the pork filling, I simply sauteed garlic and onions and added pork cubes. Flavor the meat with Hoi sin sauce [you can get this from your local asian stores, but you can also substitute with soy sauce, oyster sauce]. Add some water and corn starch mixture as a thickening agent, let it simmer. Then sprinkle some sugar and sesame oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Reserve. Lay the dough on a lightly floured surface and knead a bit until it is smooth and elastic or follow packaging instructions . Roll the dough into a long roll, and divide it into small pieces. Flatten each piece with the palm of the hand to form a thin circle. The center of the circle should be thicker than the edge. Place one portion of the pork filling in the center of each dough circle. Insert a slice of salted egg or hard-boiled egg if you wish. Wrap the dough to enclose the filling. Pinch edges to form the bun. Let the buns stand for 10 minutes. Steam buns for 12 minutes. Serve. For the Noodles, let us know if you need the recipe. That's asking for too much on my blogging debut! MOM SAYS: "I agree, the combination is almost always a perfect pair! This is one of dad's all-time favorite food craving and as always, he does find a way to satisfy that craving most often than not. He really does have this talent, cooking something good even in the most time-crunching moments, that I have to learn still. Okay, how did he do? Let's see, the buns need some more sweetness and it just had way too much onions, for my taste but the dough turned out great, just the right soft texture and taste. The noodles? turned out a bit tough on the outside [as you can see on the photo, hah!] yet soggy inside. You should work on this more, lablab...;) but the taste is just right. All in all the mami-siopao was almost perfect!" MOM'S VERDICT:♥♥♥♥