Monday, February 23, 2009

Popiah

Last Saturday I got excited thinking that I am going to make popiah skin - such is the euphoria I experience when it comes to cooking/baking something new - I'd be thrilled to indulge in new culinary experience - compared to the thought of PhD, gosh! So, I got myself busy with the business of making popiah skin ;)

There are few variations in recipes that I googled from the net - decided to try the following recipe for popiah skin and it turns out pretty good - elastic and springy.

Recipe for Popiah Skin:
Ingredients:
- 2 cups wheat flour
- 1/2 cup of corn starch
- 3 cups of water
- 1/2 tsp of salt
- 1/2 tsp of oil
- 1/2 tsp of sugar

Steps:
1. Add all the ingredients and mix well in a bowl (dissolve all the lumps of flour until you have a smooth mixture) - the mixture will be runny and smooth.
2. Take a COLD flat pan (I used non-stick) and rub a little oil on the pan so that the batter doesn't stick on it.
3. Add just enough mixture to cover the pan surface (rotate the pan around so that the mixture coats evenly on the pan surface - until you have a smooth coating on the pan).
4. Use low to medium heat and allow the batter to fry until it cooks - you will see a thin layer of coating bubbling up in the pan - forming a skin over the pan.
5. Do not overcook the skin else you will end up with a flat cruncy biscuit.
6. Carefully turn the skin over to a plate and dry the other side. You have to allow the skin to cool completely before stacking them up on each other. So, what I did was I placed 3 plates and placed the skins separately until they cool completely - that prevents them from sticking to each other when you stack them up later.
7. Allow the pan to cool down before frying the next skin - this is important so that the batter don't end up sticking way too early when you want to rotate the pan to form the skin layer. So, I had to use separate stoves to do this to save time - when I turn the skin over to the plate from one pan, I allow the pan to cool in a cold surface (not on the stove) and while waiting, I coat the batter in another pan and fry it - and the process continues until you finish all the batter.

For the filling:
- I used white carrot since I couldn't find turnip
- red carrots
- scrambled eggs
- beansprouts
- fried onions
- garlic paste
- chilli paste
- oyster sauce
- dark soy sauce
- light soy sauce

4 comments:

stschin said...

erm...I am getting hungry reading your blog page

AGAPE said...

Hehe, the joy of food!

Anonymous said...

Hello, I was googling for pau recipes and came across your blog. just a quick note to let you know i'm making a copy of yr popiah recipe. thanks, m'sian in canada - anne

AGAPE said...

Hi Anne! Great to hear from you. Indeed my pleasure to share recipes. Have fun!