These look like fun but I am really looking forward to the vegan recipe(s).
I do eat meat but only sporadically and only if it's organic meat (which would be a challenge here for pork. As far as I know no pigs are raised in this area at all, organic or not.)
Anyway, almost all my non-local guests are vegetarians. Plus, I do love vegan food.
Surprisingly, I love char-siu flavor and I think the meat doesn't define the dish. Andrea has char-siu roasted cauliflower in her Ever Green cookbook (never expect cauliflower to taste so good), and chezjorge also has a recipe for char-siu king oyster mushroom. I think when you want to veganize a traditionally meaty dish, it helps to use two types of plants for texture. That's what I gather from The Korean Vegan's bulgogi dish, in which she used soy curls and mushrooms.
Your dining habit is a lot like mine and I find it tiring to explain it to people with their unsolicited advice sometimes.
I'm lucky that in our village there is one guy with a farm who works accidentally* purely organic. He has lots of chickens running around and he has two cows. He also grows vegetables. It's all small-time, in the very best meaning of the word. He also sells chicken meat, a few times per year. He does all the prep, so you can buy whole chickens, or breasts, or thighs. I almost exclusively buy thighs because they are the perfect allrounders. Plus, if you would have to choose one animal to eat (almost) exclusively, chicken would always be my choice.
*It's simply how his parents and grandparents did things.
Bob and I roasted a pork shoulder in the pellet smoker today. We used Andrea's (@andreanguyen) char siu recipe. I found its consistency to be a nice glaze, but also thought it to be a bit thick as a marinade so I divided the four pound batch in the chart and thinned half with two tablespoons of white wine. I glazed with the other half toward the end of the three hour cook. It was very good!
We loved the Asian "hot cross" buns, too. I was a little cautious where the recipe directed adding the egg yolks to the hot mixture. I wonder if the word hot should be substituted with the word warm. I had envisioned cooked yolk before the bread dough had started the first rise! It was fine though and we made sliders with the pork and some coleslaw.
And yes, I put a handful of craisins in both the buns and the char siu glaze. I owe everyone an explanation! Once upon a time my brother was into honeybees. Big time. He had several thousand hives that he rented out for cranberry pollination. Cranberries are one of a handful of crops that must be insect pollinated. The native American fruit was matched well with our native bumblebee, until... cropping became so dense that bumblebee colonies, typically 120 to 180 bees, were too few in numbers. Enter managed honeybee colonies that eclipse bumble bee populations of a hundred with tens of thousands. It's just what a cranberry grower needs for tens of thousands blossoms! You may be interested to learn that the poor cranberry plant doesn't produce nectar and that along with its white color fails to attract honey bees. Bees would rather be anywhere else than on a cranberry bog! Beekeepers overcome this challenge by force feeding sugar syrup to promote brood development and then cutting food back just before the cranberry bloom. Growers for their part hold off the bloom by flooding the bogs and putting the plants under water. All of these manipulations are quite predictable and allow beekeepers and growers to negotiate exact bloom dates. The beehives are moved from afar in the dark of night when the plants reach the ten percent bloom. Hungry honeybees fly out into the morning sun totally disoriented and eager to feed their burgeoning brood. The first thing that they see are the cranberry blossoms onto which they descend and that's how the beekeepers entice them to transfer pollen from blossom to blossom. Tens of thousands of honeybees bombard the bogs for... about three days. After that they tend to fly over the bogs to a better source such as fields of dandelions that can be as far away as two to five miles.
Now you know why I love cranberries and their dried form "craisins." They are the synergistic product of Mother Nature's industrious little dust mops and her forgotten flower child who lacked sweetness to attract honey bees.
Love this, Evvy! You’re crazy for craisins!!! A whole pork shoulder is different than a slab of ribs or pork steak. Great tips
In the hot rolls dough, the cooked potato mixture is cooled down with the water you add afterwards so it’s lukewarm by the time the yolk goes in. I’ll add a little note for folks who may be concerned.
Now that I'm retired, I'll find some time to write about cranberries and honeybees. They're a love of my journey passed by. Will definitely have boffo pork for sliders! I love a good Boston butt. They're practically indestructible to roast. Char siu gives pork much needed flavor. Bob and I prefer it over BBQ, something of which is in plentiful supply around the South. So for us the BBQ flavor tires early in the season and we break the monotony with char siu.
These look absolutely incredible. This lapsed Catholic has never been a fan of traditional hot cross buns, either, but I would snarf a whole pan of these.
And now you've got me thinking about making ur-Catholic hot crucifix buns for next Easter.
These look like fun but I am really looking forward to the vegan recipe(s).
I do eat meat but only sporadically and only if it's organic meat (which would be a challenge here for pork. As far as I know no pigs are raised in this area at all, organic or not.)
Anyway, almost all my non-local guests are vegetarians. Plus, I do love vegan food.
Apologies to the Kinks:
'I'll be lazing until Sunday
Lazing until Sunday
Praying that the Sunday will come soon.'
You have no pigs in the area? How interesting. They’re so easy to raise. I think you’ll dig this Sunday’s Special!
It's weird, since the Czechs love pork.
I haven't looked into but but maybe they import most pork from Poland. They certainly import many eggs and industrially raised/tortured chicken meat.
I'm sure I will really like Sunday's special.
Surprisingly, I love char-siu flavor and I think the meat doesn't define the dish. Andrea has char-siu roasted cauliflower in her Ever Green cookbook (never expect cauliflower to taste so good), and chezjorge also has a recipe for char-siu king oyster mushroom. I think when you want to veganize a traditionally meaty dish, it helps to use two types of plants for texture. That's what I gather from The Korean Vegan's bulgogi dish, in which she used soy curls and mushrooms.
Your dining habit is a lot like mine and I find it tiring to explain it to people with their unsolicited advice sometimes.
I'm lucky that in our village there is one guy with a farm who works accidentally* purely organic. He has lots of chickens running around and he has two cows. He also grows vegetables. It's all small-time, in the very best meaning of the word. He also sells chicken meat, a few times per year. He does all the prep, so you can buy whole chickens, or breasts, or thighs. I almost exclusively buy thighs because they are the perfect allrounders. Plus, if you would have to choose one animal to eat (almost) exclusively, chicken would always be my choice.
*It's simply how his parents and grandparents did things.
Bob and I roasted a pork shoulder in the pellet smoker today. We used Andrea's (@andreanguyen) char siu recipe. I found its consistency to be a nice glaze, but also thought it to be a bit thick as a marinade so I divided the four pound batch in the chart and thinned half with two tablespoons of white wine. I glazed with the other half toward the end of the three hour cook. It was very good!
We loved the Asian "hot cross" buns, too. I was a little cautious where the recipe directed adding the egg yolks to the hot mixture. I wonder if the word hot should be substituted with the word warm. I had envisioned cooked yolk before the bread dough had started the first rise! It was fine though and we made sliders with the pork and some coleslaw.
And yes, I put a handful of craisins in both the buns and the char siu glaze. I owe everyone an explanation! Once upon a time my brother was into honeybees. Big time. He had several thousand hives that he rented out for cranberry pollination. Cranberries are one of a handful of crops that must be insect pollinated. The native American fruit was matched well with our native bumblebee, until... cropping became so dense that bumblebee colonies, typically 120 to 180 bees, were too few in numbers. Enter managed honeybee colonies that eclipse bumble bee populations of a hundred with tens of thousands. It's just what a cranberry grower needs for tens of thousands blossoms! You may be interested to learn that the poor cranberry plant doesn't produce nectar and that along with its white color fails to attract honey bees. Bees would rather be anywhere else than on a cranberry bog! Beekeepers overcome this challenge by force feeding sugar syrup to promote brood development and then cutting food back just before the cranberry bloom. Growers for their part hold off the bloom by flooding the bogs and putting the plants under water. All of these manipulations are quite predictable and allow beekeepers and growers to negotiate exact bloom dates. The beehives are moved from afar in the dark of night when the plants reach the ten percent bloom. Hungry honeybees fly out into the morning sun totally disoriented and eager to feed their burgeoning brood. The first thing that they see are the cranberry blossoms onto which they descend and that's how the beekeepers entice them to transfer pollen from blossom to blossom. Tens of thousands of honeybees bombard the bogs for... about three days. After that they tend to fly over the bogs to a better source such as fields of dandelions that can be as far away as two to five miles.
Now you know why I love cranberries and their dried form "craisins." They are the synergistic product of Mother Nature's industrious little dust mops and her forgotten flower child who lacked sweetness to attract honey bees.
Love this, Evvy! You’re crazy for craisins!!! A whole pork shoulder is different than a slab of ribs or pork steak. Great tips
In the hot rolls dough, the cooked potato mixture is cooled down with the water you add afterwards so it’s lukewarm by the time the yolk goes in. I’ll add a little note for folks who may be concerned.
Happy Easter, Andrea!
Likewise, Jolene! Spring is here!
🌼 😊
These look amazing!!!
Phenomenal hot buns. 😹
Happy Easter, Andrea! I love keeping you busy. Delicious results!!
P.S. Craisins instead of raisins!
Happy Easter to y’all! Craisins would be delightful in the rolls. But I bet with your smoker for the char siu, you’ll have boffo pork for the sliders.
Now that I'm retired, I'll find some time to write about cranberries and honeybees. They're a love of my journey passed by. Will definitely have boffo pork for sliders! I love a good Boston butt. They're practically indestructible to roast. Char siu gives pork much needed flavor. Bob and I prefer it over BBQ, something of which is in plentiful supply around the South. So for us the BBQ flavor tires early in the season and we break the monotony with char siu.
These look absolutely incredible. This lapsed Catholic has never been a fan of traditional hot cross buns, either, but I would snarf a whole pan of these.
And now you've got me thinking about making ur-Catholic hot crucifix buns for next Easter.