Homemade Chicken Pau

After attending Chef Valerie's Pau Workshop back in August, I've finally succeeded in my first Homemade Chicken Pau. Well, actually I attempted a batch of Pork Pau shortly after the workshop, but uh-oh, I'd  rather not talk about it (read: failure).

The process was much smoother this time, the pau dough looked ok, with the right texture as I remembered from the class. I do need lots more practice though! Was supposed to roll each piece of dough into a flat disc with the centre being slightly thicker than the sides. But somehow I could never get a perfect piece of round flat disc and I could never manage to roll the sides thinner. When I rolled the sides thinner, the disc became an odd shape; when I didn't/couldn't, the sides were too thick to pleat properly.

I don't know why the pleats of the Pau cracked after steaming. Will ask Chef Valerie if I have a chance to next time. Nevertheless, I was quite happy with the result; the Pau looked pretty decent and edible of course.

I can't share the recipe here due to copyrights stipulated by the Chef and Cooking School. So here's just a pictorial run-through. Top left photo showed the minced chicken aka the filling of the pau. Instead of turnip as stated in the recipe, I added water chestnut. I also reduced the amount of seasonings. Important step in preparing the filling, was to whack it, so that the meat would bind together and more crunchy. Top right photo, started to wrap by putting a bit of filling in the centre of the pau dough. As you could see, my pau dough wasn't very round. Bottom left photo, I topped the filling with hald a quail egg. Bottom right photo, tadah, my wrapped pau. The pleats were a little too thick, as a result of the sides of the dough not rolled thin enough. But still, looked ok lah.

So here's my chicken pau before steaming. I thought I rolled 12 pieces of dough but I realised after wrapping that I had only 11 paus! Haha :p (I think the dough wasn't enough or something, well never mind).

And tadah, the chicken paus after 15 mins of high heat steaming. Not bad, except some of the pleats cracked.

After the paus cooled "sufficiently" (as usual I was dying to try), I quickly took one large bite. Hmmm, the pau was soft and fluffy and the filling juicy. The filling was not as savoury due to less amount of seasonings but I was trying to go more healthy here :p I seriously need to practise more coz the bottom of the pau was quite thin and the top (pleated parts) too thick, a bit unbalanced.

Making pau at home is not that difficult, just tedious and time consuming (and my son couldn't be at home or he'll mess around - he's too young to appreciate or help out at his age). Ok, adding to my to-do list - Vegetable Pau, Char Siew Pau and Egg Yolk Custard Pau. Till then :)