Hello! Hi everyone, Wesley here. Today we're diving back into our series dedicated to Chinese dim sum and breakfast food classics with a shot at one of my absolute favorite pastries found in pretty much any Chinese bakery worth it's salt, which is the Chinese curry puff pastry, or "jia li jiao." For those unfamiliar, as the name implies, a jia li jiao is comprised of a curried ground mince meat filling, tucked inside of a pastry dough made with sheets of laminated butter. This in turn yields a wonderfully puffy, flakey, crossiant like texture to our pastry, not unlike I'm sure, pretty much every French pastry that you can think of. 

This of course is because the idea of a pastry dough filled with ground meat is not a particularly complicated concept, which of course means that (as with many culinary concepts), it transcends throughout a whole bunch of different cultural cuisines, reminiscent of the Agrentinian empanada, the Jamaician meat pie, and many others, which is, pretty cool. Honestly, one of my favorite things about cooking, really. For our jia li jiao version today, we're gonna include a few quintessentially Chinese elements to create our bright and savory curry including a bit of shaoxing wine and oyster sauce. Then because as many of you may know, I'm always a sucker for a good shortcut, we're also gonna take a look at how to get away with skipping the long and ardious step of laminating butter into a pastry dough, since, as you might have guessed, what we just described is a fantastic, readily available premade frozen product known as...puff pastry. Hope you try it.

 

Yields 18

INGREDIENTS

  • 4 cloves garlic

  • 2 tbsp ginger

  • 1/2 medium onion

  • 1/2 lb ground pork

  • 2 sheets puff pastry

  • egg wash (1 egg + 1 tbsp water)

  • sesame seeds

  • peanut oil

INGREDIENTS (marinade)

  • 4 tbsp low sodium soy sauce (or 2 tbsp full sodium soy sauce)

  • 1 tbsp sesame oil

  • 1 tbsp rice vinegar

  • 1 tbsp shaoxing wine

  • 1 tbsp oyster sauce

  • 1 tbsp curry powder

  • 1/2 tsp turmeric

  • 1/2 tsp cumin

  • 1/2 tsp white pepper

INGREDIENTS (puff pastry, optional)

  • 150g AP flour

  • 2g kosher salt

  • 80g cold water

  • 1 stick butter

PREP

  • crush and mince the garlic, set aside

  • peel and mince the ginger, set aside

  • LARGE DICE the onions, set aside

  • COMBINE the ground pork with all marinade ingredients, then set aside to marinate for 30 minutes

  • WHISK together the egg wash, set aside

PREP (puff pastry, optional)

  • KNEAD the flour, kosher salt, and cold water in a mixing bowl until a cohesive dough ball forms, then roll out until 14 inches in diameter

  • LAMINATE the butter 2 tbsp at a time into the dough, then fold into thirds and repeat

  • WRAP the pastry dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour before using

ON THE STOVE

  • HEAT a wok as hot as possible, then add 4 tbsp peanut oil and long yao

  • ADD garlic and ginger, then saute until fragrant for 15 seconds

  • ADD the ground pork and saute for 3-4 minutes until cooked through, then remove

  • REHEAT the wok as hot as possible, then add 2 tbsp peanut oil and long yao

  • ADD onions and season with a pinch of kosher salt, then saute 1-2 minutes until translucent

  • ADD the ground pork back to the wok, then toss to combine

  • DIVIDE the puff pastry sheets into nine equal pieces, then add a tbsp of filling to the center and fold shut using a fork

  • COAT the pastries in egg wash, then finish with sesame seeds, and bake at 400F until golden brown

 

tagged with jia li jiao, gah li gao, curry puff, chinese curry puff, chinese pastry, chinese puff pastry, puff pastry, chinese baking dim sum, dim sum pastry, dim sum recipe, woo can cook