It wasn't until moving to Hong Kong that I realized what a culinary prude I was.
We Westerners are so skittish and squeamish about what we put in our mouths.
If it's too soft we don't like it. If it's slippery we don't like it. If it's too chewy we don't like it. If it's smelly we don't like it (except cheese, of course). If it's...ambiguous...we don't like it.
Ambiguous? Yes, a dish that doesn't fit squarely into the categories "savory" or "sweet." For example, mooncakes. Most people would probably say that mooncakes are a "sweet" dish. They have a thin skin of sweet pastry covering a dense lump of lotus seed paste, which is smooth and bland and quite sugary.
But on the inside is a salty, crumbly, dense, slightly sulfuric duck's egg, baked right into the middle. For Westerners, this just jumbles our entire gastronomic mental framework. We have no place in our realm of reference experiences in which to relate to this alien thing: the mooncake.
My friend J-- from Guanzhou gave me my first mooncake. It was a foggy, grey October day in San Francisco and we were bundled up in fleece jackets after a long walk at Fort Funston. Driving back through the Sunset District she told me to stop because she wanted to buy me a mooncake. We brought it back to my house and made a pot of tea on my beautiful old gas stove...
My first bite of mooncake was pleasant enough. I've got a sweet tooth, so I generally like anything sugary, regardless of how strange. It had that kind of flat sweetness I also associate with some Italian cookies. Just sweet and that's all. But I found the glue-y denseness of the mooncake intriguing. Then I hit a piece of the duck's egg...
Oh boy. I had this very strange sensation of biting into something that tasted...biological...like it came from my own body. Since I'm already being gross here, I'll say that the closest reference experience I could muster was eating my own boogers as a little kid. (Now, I know you're going to all run out and buy mooncakes!)
This kind of threw me for a loop... Damn, it, I am an adventurous eater! But man, that salted duck's egg freaked me out.
That was maybe four years ago. When we visited Hong Kong last September, I found myself thrust into a barrage of mooncake advertising in anticipation of the Mid-Autumn Festival. The amount of commercial riffing on the concept of "mooncake" is incredible. There are snowy mooncakes, green tea mooncakes, Haagen-Daaz ice cream mooncakes, Starbucks mooncakes, even butt-shaped mooncakes from the GOD store (check out the blog Red Cook for a rundown).
I have certainly partaken of these blasphemous mooncakes -- I can't resist a sweet hockey-puck-shaped treat -- but I continue to contemplate the traditional mooncake with lotus seed paste and duck egg. Gradually, as I have eaten a few slices here and there, I have begun to accept the proposition: a thin, sweet oily skin that gives way to one's teeth just so, an assertive dense shot of glue-y sugar, a mind-bendingly-weird morsel of crumbly egg. And just when it starts to overwhelm, you take a nice sip of hot Chinese tea -- which washes the dense material out of your mouth, its bitterness neutralizing the sweet and salty flavors, its spicy/herbal aroma refreshing your senses.
The entire experience is a workout for your senses and your mind. Now I'm finding that I crave it...
Which is why, having developed this complex relationship with mooncakes, I enthusiastically signed up for a mooncake-making class at Towngas Cooking Centre (they're going to have to pay me commission here soon). I wanted to get to know the mooncake better. I wanted to understand what makes a mooncake a good one or a bad one.
It turns out that mooncakes are quite simple in terms of of ingredients.They contain:
- Sugar syrup
- Flour
- Peanut oil
- Lye water
- Lotus seed paste
- Yolks from salted duck's eggs
Here are the steps for making mooncakes:
Mark your calendar -- I'm serious! In total, a home cook will need two weeks to one month to achieve excellent final results. The Mid-Autumn Festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese calendar. In 2010, that turns out to be Sept 22nd. If you wait too long, you won't get the right consistency syrup and your mooncakes won't be glossy from the oils soaking out.
Think beer and honey -- The first step is to create a syrup that goes into the dough covering the cake. The syrup is made with two types of sugar crystal, ostensibly for "stability." The final product should be the color of San Miguel beer and it should have roughly the consistency of honey. If it's not thick enough, your dough will have the wrong consistency and it will be impossible to cover the lotus paste balls.
Fingertips first -- Put your oil in a liquid measure, then add the syrup and lye water (if you put the syrup first, it will stick). Spread out your flour, make a well in the center, and pour the liquid in the middle. You'll notice that the oil and syrup won't mix. With your fingertips, work the flour into the oil part of the liquid until you can integrate it with the syrup. If you don't do this, you won't get a smooth and consistent dough.
Keep an eye on your eggs -- After carefully measuring your ingredients (135-140g of paste will fit into a mooncake mold), make a ball of paste, create an indentation, and then place your egg yolks inside, making sure not to leave any air bubbles. Then, make indentations at the top -- like a bowling ball -- so you know where the eggs are. Otherwise, you may wind up with top-bottom eggs instead of side-side eggs.
Keep the edges fat -- Measure 40g of dough for each single-yolk cake (experts can do it in 37g). Make a small pancake and slap it on the paste ball. Spread the dough out with the heel of your hand so that it covers the entire ball. As you're working, remember to keep the edges of the expanding pancake fat -- otherwise, you'll run out before you finish.
Don't use too much oil -- The next step is to put your balls into a mooncake press, put them on an oiled sheet, and then press down. You need to oil the press and the sheet first. If you are a bit overzealous, like I am, you will over-oil everything, which will result in your mooncakes sliding to the edge of the pan while they bake -- and then they will brown unevenly. Don't do this.
Don't use too much egg -- Mist the cakes with a spray-bottle of water and bake them in three rounds: 10-15 mins at 190C, 8-10 mins at 170C, 8-10 mins at 150C. After rounds 1 and 2, brush the tops gently with egg. This gives the mooncake color. If, however, you're overzealous like me, you will over-egg the delicate dough, muddying the shape. Don't do that, either.
Wait (don't refrigerate) -- After all of that, let your mooncakes cool completely. Then put them upside down in a tupperware container. Don't do this when they're hot or you will crush the design. Also, do not refrigerate at this point or you will cause the oils to congeal and they won't come to the surface. Give the mooncakes 3-5 days of sitting unrefrigerated to become nice and glossy. Then, they can be stored up to 2-3 weeks.
My mooncakes came out slightly lopsided and muddy-looking, but they were golden brown and delicious! Next year I'm sure they will be perfect ;-)
If you're still reading, you may also be interested to know that mooncakes have an interesting history... When China was ruled by Mongolians during the Yuan dynasty (13th & 14th century), leaders from the previous Song dynasty organized a rebellion, coordinating their attack by sending out messages hidden in mooncakes during the Moon Festival.
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