Discover the unique texture of Northeast Chinese Sticky Millet Bean Bun, a delicious gluten-free treat that delights the senses!
Discover the Unique Texture of Northeast Chinese Sticky Millet Bean Buns – A Gluten-Free Delight!
The Sticky Millet Bean Buns are a delicious and unique addition to any vegan menu. This recipe yields 12 medium-sized buns, combining a blend of finely ground cornmeal, millet flour, and glutinous rice flour to create a delightful texture. The dough is brought together with just enough water, making it easy to work with. A can of kidney beans and dates soaked overnight add a rich flavor and natural sweetness, making these buns a satisfying option for any meal or snack.
To prepare these buns, specific cookware is recommended, including a portable camping stove and a bamboo steamer, which help achieve the perfect steaming process. A white pot/pan set with detachable handles is also useful for the cooking process. Additionally, a stone grinder can be employed for those who want to grind their own flour, enhancing the freshness of the ingredients used. This recipe not only showcases the versatility of vegan cooking but also highlights the importance of using the right tools for optimal results.
Discover the Delightful Chew: A Gluten-Free Journey with Northeast Chinese Sticky Millet Bean Buns!
A really interesting texture it is not one that I haven’t had something like this before ah okay hi everyone uh so today’s buns that we’re making is going to be something called n and it is a uh a bun from northeastern China.
So I actually want to start um kind of grouping our Chinese recipes actually I want to make a video on the it’s supposed to be the eight main Cuisines of China I I thought that there used to be less but I think that eight was an auspicious number so um I want to be doing uh a video on that just so that we can start um kind of organizing our.
Thoughts in terms of like okay like Chinese quisine isn’t just Chinese cuisine like why is it you know this particular Cuisine instead of here like how is it maybe either like historically related obviously like geographically it’s going to determine a lot of what people eat in a particular region just so that we can start like organizing our.
Things instead of just being like Oh Chinese food or like Indian food um it makes more sense to do it that way especially because we like to kind of go around and explore you know not so known recipes so I thought uh I will I need to definitely go and uh definitely go and do that but this is a Northeastern Chinese recipe and it translates to the.
Nan is kind of like from glutenous Rice so it’s kind of like this um more like stretchy chewy bun dough bun and then the dough inside the name uh uh means beans so it’s kind of like this uh I’m going to be doing a taste test at the end but this bun has a very unique texture because it’s not really bread it’s almost like half kind of we bread.
But then also half you know like Mochi you know it’s like sticky and chewy so when you pair these two together it kind of becomes a different type of texture and it was definitely something that uh was new to me and then the center of it is just kind of like a a sweetened Bean filling many of the times people will use aduki beans.
Because usually when whenever we pair something sweet we use like auki beans with sugar but actually um in the Northeast they say that they use something more liken to like kidney beans uh and then sweetening them up that way and kidney beans are interesting because they to me they taste a little bit more um like.
Savory like I I pair kidney beans with like you know something like proteiny with meat something salty versus something sweet so um that is going to be an interesting combination um as well so uh yeah that I think that’s all that I have to say okay so let’s start the recipe wait for the taste test and be amazed with let me.
just so I have 150 g of cornmeal and then to that I’m just going to add some boiling water and this kind of pre Cooks the cornmeal a little bit and it gives a nicer texture afterwards millet.
Flour so you’re going to get a really nice color from these dumplings too I’m going to add in some gluten white rice um flour you could totally do this with a brown glutenous rice flour but I did not make any in advance cuz I usually like to soak my rice and do all of that.
Beforehand so uh you could very much make this a lot more hearty as well so then now I just have some room temperature water that I’m just going to pour in and I’ll figure out how much it is and I’ll put it down below but sometimes it’s.
Just how much the flower can take on this particular day so for those of you at home how you would do it is to just you know take a cup of water maybe put in half a cup at a time see how this dough comes together cuz once it does it’s pretty much good if the dough seems a little bit wet.
Sometimes you can get away with just not covering it having it dry out just a little bit with a gluten-free dough it can get a lot more crumbly so that’s why the um the boiling water at the beginning uh can sometimes help with that get some of the starches going and then you start working with more of like.
A a dough with gluten where it actually sticks together but even now you can you can kind of see it it breaks apart very much like a gluten-free dough okay so the interesting thing about this dough is after this is done you’re actually going to put it aside for about 12 hours 12 hours to a day um and you.
Want to knead it with your hands because get some of that good hand bacteria and you want this to kind of ferment overnight uh because the dough is supposed to taste a bit on the sour side so that can be pretty interesting um I am imagine in the summer time you can probably get away with you know 12 hours to a day fine maybe in the winter time.
It’s a little bit longer but no good way to gauge that unless you uh have a taste of the dough so uh I’m just going to see a piece of cloth on it we’ll see this dough tomorrow okay so now time for The Filling um I have been told that usually what they’ll use in the northeastern region of China is actually um more like.
Kidy beans as opposed to red aduki beans so I had some of these uh if you remember the the Dr Gregor beans uh that he sent me so uh I made some of those and so they’re nice and nice and soft uh right now strain that out and then uh typically it’s just sweetened with beans and uh some kind of a sweetener like sugar so I thought we.
Could do it with beans and then we can do it with actually whole dates this time because well I usually tell you um you can mix it in with some date Sugar but not everybody has date Sugar but everybody has dates my mure boo knife but everybody has dates um and sometimes it’s nice.
That the filling is a little bit more chunky as opposed to just you know like white sugar and and mashed up beans but what’s nice about using whole dates is one it’s very readily available everybody has it but then also when you um taste the filling you’re going to get you know some chunks of it as opposed to everything being you know quite.
Pulverized so you can just chop this up to as fine as you lot first so I moved it over to a smaller Bowl but what you can smell yesterday was.
Kind of the sweetness of the Corn you know the Millet kind of the sweetness of grain but now you you know 24 hours later you kind of um you smell you kind of smell like a little bit of tanginess which is actually quite nice I’m surprised that it happened so quickly because um my kitchen is not necessarily that warm okay so just going.
To knead this back together and then we’ll start filling them there’s the thing though with my cornmeal I feel like my cornmeal could have been milled a little bit more fine so you can definitely for my dough anyways you can feel the cornmeal so it kind of breaks up the dough a little bit more so when.
You you actually do fill this afterwards um just kind of be prepared that it might crumble a little bit but that’s completely okay it does crumble.
So kind of be a little bit more careful with it close that up close that see some bits of that okay so let’s give this a try um this is.
Right out of the steamer I didn’t open the steamer but I did let it cool for about 15 to 20 minutes it’s um off the bat it it has an interesting texture I I’m more used to like um when I steam glutenous rice doughs usually they’re really stretchy they’re like really gooey right this holds its shape.
Very much like a glutenous rice dough but there is something kind of like dry about it as well because it’s it’s dry um so it’s kind of like a normal bread dough and yet it is dense Okay so a good amount of filling in here and the filling again is it’s as you like so we could have added more dates you could.
Have added you know another type of sweetener uh to it so I don’t think that’s really good I don’t think that we’re trying out the filling per se here I think we’re trying out really this shell this skin okay so I’m going to have a bite of this this is a really this is a really interesting.
Texture it is not one that I haven’t had something like this before ah um the texture of this tastes like if you had a very very thick batter that is sticky in your mouth and and normally it would be like uncooked because you know something of this texture wouldn’t wouldn’t be cooked and yet it is cooked okay.
So I’m going to try to give you an idea of this in my hands it becomes like kind of this gummy paste but it’s not as gummy as just steaming you know uh glutenous rice dough which you get kind of like a Mochi texture this is this is thicker this is denser honestly this reminds me of like.
The texture of kind of like when you’re kneading dough only you didn’t add too much flour in first and the dough is kind of wetter but still you know it’s dry um that’s kind of it um not actually trying to gross you out here this is just kind of an interesting texture for me it’s just.
It’s not as Squishy in the least as Mochi D it is like kind of maybe half but it is slightly grainy from the Millet from the corn and it is slightly like thicker and more dense almost like you were having kind of like a a wet dough but it’s still dry um let’s go on.
To the flavor in terms of the flavor of the bun as a whole it’s actually really good I thought that the beans wouldn’t be sweet enough and I think in normal circumstances they aren’t sweet enough but um I think by not adding too much sweetness you get kind of like a a.
Savory flavor and a sweet flavor whenever you bite into to the dates which is actually really nice like I don’t really like everything just being super overpowering all the time so that’s really nice um the dough itself is very interesting you do get all of the sweetness of like corn and Millet and just like generally this the.
Sweetness of grains come through but then kind of on the sides of your tongue you get this like little bit of tininess a little bit of sourness and that can be really nice because you know grains kind of taste like grains they don’t it’s a very neutral flavor beans are kind of a very neutral flavor you get a little bit of the dates but.
Then the sourness kind of like I don’t know peps things up a little bit it’s not very sour it’s just a little bit sour so I’m guessing if you wanted it more sour you just you know ferment it maybe another 6 hours maybe another 12 hours and then play around with it like that um but yeah it is a very I always test these things out for.
You and it ends up looking kind of weird but let me just I mean I think this is great cuz not very often do I get to try things that I’ve like never tried before and I really like that this is like a Mixed Grain um like Ling or Mixed Grain buns so I think next time we could totally try to just do this with um glutenous.
Brown rice flour that would totally work um that would add in some extra texture to these buns as well which yeah I don’t know I say I I think I think give it a try kind of interesting don’t make too much you know in case you don’t like it but um yeah yeah
