Chinese Pastries

I must admit, I have a soft spot for pastries. Not the 'western' kind of pastries like chicken pies or danish pastries, rather it's the Chinese 點心(Dian Xin) types, like 蛋黃酥(pastry with salted egg yolk), 豆沙餅(puffs with mung bean filling), 老婆餅("Wives' Biscuit") etc.

However, Chinese puff pastries are traditionally made using lard, rendering it that 0h-so-flaky skin texture. Nowadays I believe a lot of people uses vegetable fat or shortening to achieve the same effect. As for myself, I'm trying to avoid foodstuff that uses shortening, and that also means cutting back on my favourite pastries right? Well, not really ;p

I have never thought of making my own chinese pastry until I chanced upon this recipe in KC. This 豆沙餅 recipe uses oil in place of solid fats. Sounds like I could give it a try. I have actually made this some time last year, and the result? Flaky exterior paired with a delicious savoury mung bean filling.

These are the ones made last year.

Made these a few days back, but I was a little lazy to prepare the mung bean filling, so mashed some cooked pumpkin instead. Just as delicious.