Chinese Tea Bean Cake - Recipe

Chinese tea bean cake is a popular snack originated from Hong Kong and Taiwan.  It can be sweet or savoury, and are served during Chinese New Year, or any festival gatherings.  The way to distinguish sweet and savoury bean cakes, we use pink colouring in the sweet cake's dough, and savoury cakes are white.  It is a very traditional and popular snack in Chinese, therefore I would like to share the recipe with you.  Although this recipe does not contain Chinese tea as the ingredient, it is a common snack to be served with tea.  It goes well with Oolong tea!  This is how it is served in restaurants:

Chinese Tea Bean Cake Recipe

Ingredients:
Some black eye beans 1 pound
Vegetable oil for frying
Glutinous Rice Flour 1 pound
Hot water
Bamboo Leaves

Filling Ingredients:
Five Spice Powder to taste
Spring Onions to taste
Salt to taste
Sugar to taste
Pepper to taste
Chopped Dried Shrimps to taste

Chopped Peanuts to taste

Steps:

1. Soak your beans and cover in cold water and soak overnight.  The next day, take some time out and use your fingers to rub and remove all the skins.  The skin won't make it inedible or anything... however, it will look more attractive without the skin.
2. Boil Your Beans - Take your beans and cover in water, and simmer until soft.
3. Mash your beans - Once soft, you can drain the water, and mash up the beans. 
4. Fry the beans and make the filling - Dry-fry (no oil) the mashed beans in a non-stick pan to dehydrate the beans.  After about 10 minutes or so, you and add other filling ingredients to enhance the flavour and continue frying with added oil.
5. Make your dough - This recipe calls for glutinous rice flour. For the moment, put around 4/5 of the packet into a big bowl.  Gradually add hot (not boiling) water to the flour, mixing and kneading as you go until the flour becomes a soft doughy mixture. 
6. Fill your dough with the filling.  Cover your hands in flour, tear out a walnut sized piece of dough. Knead and roll in your hands until the dough becomes a smooth ball shape. Dip the ball in the flour to give a light coating of flour. Push a finder into the dough, making a hole, take a pinch of flour and place inside the hole.   Fill the hole with your filling about 1 tablespoon full. Take the mouth of the dough and turn whilst you squeeze and pleat, making the mouth smaller and smaller until you can twist the edges together. Tear off the little nub that's left at the end. Pat and Smooth the dough all over
7. Soak your Bamboo Leaves - Bamboo leaves are used as the lining for your bean cakes to sit on. Once steamed, the dough becomes incredibly sticky and gooey. Without the bamboo leaves, you simply wouldn't be able to remove the cakes from the plate. 
8. Cut your bamboo leaves into squares Make sure they're large enough to fit your cakes with a bit of extra space for them to spread.
9. Plop your cakes on top of the leaves
10. Steam your cakes - Place them on a plate or a wire rack and place inside a steamer.  They don't need to be steamed for long, about 10 minutes should do. Gran says that you shouldn't overcook them or they become sloppy, likewise, you shouldn't undercook them or they're not pliable and squishy enough.
11. Grease up your bean cakes - Once they are done, take them out of the steamer, and start spreading cold vegetable/sunflower oil over the surface. This is to give them a lovely sheen, and to stop them from sticking to each other.

Variations of Tea Bean Cakes, so cute!

Chinese Marbled Tea Eggs - Recipe

Tea egg is a typical Chinese savoury food commonly sold as a snack, in which a pre-boiled egg is cracked and then boiled again in tea, sauce and/or spices. It is also known as marble egg because cracks in the egg shell create darkened lines with marble-like patterns.

Chinese marbled tea eggs are usually stewed in a black tea/soy sauce/spice blend (as shown above), are a ubiquitous and cheap snack sold all around Asia, typically in China, in snack stands and convenience stores. The aromas of tea, cinnamon, star anise, and soy sauce are intoxicating, and perfect for winter.  The eggs are also easy to make at home. Getting the marbling effect is as simple as cracking the eggs once they're cooked. You can use any black tea; just avoid green tea since it's too astringent to use for simmering.  The eggs can be simmered for 1 to 2 hours; longer simmering means a more intense flavor and color.

Once the eggs are cooked, you can eat them hot or cold as a snack. I like to make lazy meals out of just 2 eggs over ramen noodles, or chopped up eggs over fried rice. Or serve them as appetizers at a party, cut in half with caviar on top.

Green Tea as a Diet

Green tea is the most consumed tea in China and is often a substitute for water during meal times to contribute for health or choice. It is also a form of traditional Chinese medicine and has been for the last 4,000 years. Green tea treats headaches and also boosts the immune system whilst aiding all kinds of viruses. It is also used to lose weight because it regulates the blood sugar levels by reducing the amount of insulin in the body and the extract also increases the energy level which increases the metabolism of body fat. Green tea can be served with each meal as it suppresses your appetite and speed up your metabolic rate. Drinking green also helps in the prevention of cancer, tooth decay, high cholesterol levels and cardiovascular disease. 

Green Tea Shortbread - A fusion with western culture

Green tea is a traditional Chinese tea, and has become a popular ingredient in western cooking as well.  The recipe I have for you today is Green Tea Shortbread.  While shortbread is traditionally Scottish, in recent decades green tea-flavored shortbread cookies have become pretty widespread around Japan, sold in bakeries and pastry shops alongside green tea cakes and mousses.  And it's quite an addictive little snack.

Green Tea Shortbread Recipe

Ingredients (Makes about 3 dozen)

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 vanilla bean or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 tablespoons matcha powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black sesame seeds

Special equipment – round cookie cutter about 2 inches in diameter, or another cookie cutter about the same size.

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter with the confectioners’ sugar and granulated sugar. Add the vanilla extract (if using instead of vanilla bean).
3. If you’re using a vanilla bean instead, slit bean down the middle with a pairing knife and scrape out the black seeds from both sides of the middle. Discard the outer shell or save for another use.
4. In another bowl, sift together the flour, matcha powder, vanilla bean seeds (if using instead of vanilla extract), and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the sugar butter mixture from step 2. Mix until a smooth dough forms.
5. Flour a clean working surface and a rolling pin. Roll out the dough until it is between 1/4″ to 1/3″ thick. Use a 2” wide round cookie cutter to cut out circles. (You may need to reroll the dough once or twice more to use up the remainder.) Place the circles on a baking sheet lined with a Silpat or parchment paper, about 2 inches apart. Sprinkle the black sesame seeds on top of each cookie.
6. Bake until the bottoms are just lightly golden, about 8 to 10 minutes, checking at the 8 minute mark. (Be careful not to overbake.) Transfer to wire racks and cool to room temperature.

You will end up with about 3 dozen small cookies for breakfast, afternoon tea, or dessert. They'll keep in an air-tight container for up to 4 or 5 days, but believe me, these cookies go very very quickly...

The Symbolic Meanings

A round dining table is used in China as opposed to rectangular table in most Western cultures, this allows for all guests face each other. A formal dinner is always accompanied by tea, where the person sitting next to the teapot pours it for everyone, from the senior, superior, youths then to infants. In the Chinese culture tea is often used to express much different gratitude. 

The younger generation offers a cup of tea to show their respect to their elders and in the past people who were from low class would serve tea to high class. Tea is also used as a form of family gathering, for instance when a family member leaves home. It is also used to express apologies by pouring tea for them it regarded as a sign of regret and sincerity. On wedding days tea is a must in Chinese marriage ceremonies, where the parents will drink a small portion of tea, served by their children and give them red envelope as a sign of “good luck”. Not only is it used to give thanks but to connect large families on wedding days, where drinking tea shows acceptance of a new family and allows both families to meet each other. 

Green Tea as an ice-cream

Green tea ice cream is a Japanese style dessert and is the most common choice of “beverage” for many Japanese people. It is a very common dessert in many parts of Asian and has crossed to the Western culture, including United States. The dessert comprises of the health benefits of green tea with the sweetened and mouth-watering taste and texture of an ice cream. The dessert is made with “Matcha Green Tea”, a fine powder and can also be used to flavour or dye food and is regarded as a high quality green tea. Green tea ice cream can be served with just about anything, from exotic to tropical fruit, wafers and nuts, chocolate, whip cream or just simply eaten by itself.

Ochazuke - Green Tea Rice Recipe

Ochazuke is rice in green tea with some salty toppings or pickled vegetables.  It is a very simple recipe that involves hardly any cooking.  Ochazuke is a “you make it at the table” kind of thing, so you probably won’t find it on the menu at restaurants.  Traditionally, if you tell your friends that you ate Ochazuke for lunch, you’re basically saying you didn’t have anything on hand to eat or didn’t want to cook.  Oops!

Ochazuke Recipe

Ingredients:
Japanese rice crackers
hot green tea
Steamed Rice
Salmon Flakes
thinly cut roasted seaweed
sesame seeds
wasabi
soy sauce

Instructions:

1. Put rice crackers in a plastic bag and smash them to coarse pieces. Prepare hot green tea.
2. Put rice in a rice bowl, top with cracker pieces, salmon flakes, seaweed, sesame seeds, and wasabi. Pour hot green tea over rice. Add a little soy sauce if you want.
3. Tada! There you have it!

This is a very simple dish to make at home and particularly good when you don’t have much appetite or sick.  There is nothing hard to digest in the ingredients.  It can be great to eat after holidays, parties, and obviously when you're sick.  Let your tummy have a rest, and have some mild, tasty and simple Ochazuke!