Mini XO Sauce Chicken Pies

Happy Chinese New Year! I started 2016 with a food project. I wanted people to cook/bake/make Chinese pastries, I wanted people to get excited about Chinese pastries like they do with doughnuts and pies and cupcakes. So I thought one of the best ways was to get the food community...bloggers, photographers, instagrammers involved. There are so much great Chinese treats out there and people should know about them. Here's what I made or attempted to make. The mini chicken pie. Yeah, it looks NOTHING like the ones you find in a Chinese bakery, also the crust is totally wrong. I used the Four & Twenty Blackbirds pie crust recipe which is awesome and flaky but it should be more crumbly and cookie like. ALSO, I had spent days trying to find out how they shape the pies. In the end I made them more like mini chicken pot pies with the crimping and stuff. Now I'm tempted to go intern at a Chinese bakery just so I know how to properly make this.

But this as a Hong Kong chicken pie "inspired" creation, it's pretty darn tasty.

Did you make or bake something for my project? Remember to include the hashtag #bakewithdonny so I can see and please include a link in the comments below! Hopefully you have learned something cool from this project.

Makes 4 pies 1.5 lb chicken thighs (4 pieces) 1/2 onion diced 2 cloves of garlic grated 1 teaspoon grated ginger 2 tablespoons xo sauce 1 tablespoon flour 1 tablespoon soy sauce 1 teaspoon sesame oil 1 tablespoon fermented bean sauce (optional) A can of chicken stock 1 egg Oil Salt + pepper

First, make the pie crust. I used the Four & Twenty Blackbirds pie crust recipe. I made enough for a double crust pie. When the dough is resting in the fridge, make the filling.

Pre-heat the oven, 350 degrees.

Remove the skin from the thighs and lay them flat on a sheet pan. Season both sides. Then lay a piece of parchment paper on top follow by another pan...follow by something heavy (also oven safe). This is to keep the skin flat. Put the pieces of skin in the oven and bake for 40mins. When they're done, place the skins onto paper towels to soak up the oil and then dice them up for sprinkling.

Remove the bone from the thighs and cut up the meat into 1/2 inch cubes.

In a pan on medium high heat, add some oil. Toss in the chicken and cook till you don't see any pink on the outside. Add in the diced onion and cook for couple minutes. Add in garlic and ginger. Add in all the sauces (xo sauce, sesame oil, soy sauce, fermented bean sauce). Then season to taste.

*Note: The xo sauce I bought is not the same one I used to buy. I couldn't find the brand I wanted and settled on another brand. The jar that I got isn't as strong in the xo sauce flavor so after tasting the filling, I added another tablespoon. I suggest you give the filling a taste as well and tweak as you like. You might want more fermented bean sauce flavor or maybe more sesame oil flavor.

Add the flour to the filling mixture, stir and add the chicken stock. Let mixture simmer for few minutes. Then take it off the heat and let cool.

*Note: I only added enough stock to go half way up to the pieces of chicken. I didn't want it to get too saucy. If you like it more saucy, add more stock.

Increase the oven temperature to 375 degrees.

While the filling is cooling, roll out the dough. Line each mini pie pan with dough and some overhang. Use a fork and poke some holes in the dough. Spoon in the filling. Place another piece of dough on top and then crimp the edges.

Beat up 1 egg and brush all the pies with the egg. Put the pies into the oven and bake till golden brown, roughly 45-50mins. When the pies are just about to turn golden brown, sprinkle chicken skin on top. Finish baking.

Make a pot of oolong tea and eat a pie.

A Galette

Honestly I have never heard of galette before until few months ago when Marian Bull brought one to a picnic at Prospect Park. A ga..what?

And ever since then, it's all I see and hear and read about in the digital space. It's like one of those things where you go and buy a green car and suddenly, it's all you see on the road, green cars.

I've been meaning to make one but well you know, had to wait till it was cooler to turn on the oven.

Instead of doing a sweet one, I did a savory galette with eggs cause I love eggs.

This is a no-brainer. The only tough part is making the dough but now that I have made the 4 & 20 Blackbirds pie crust dough few times, it's getting easier and quicker. (You can find their all butter pie crust recipe on Food52 or go buy their book!)

The rest of this is really up to you. I went to the farmers market and didn't really decide until I saw what was available. I got couple red onions and some watermelon radishes because I have never seen them at the market.

-------------------------------------------- 1 pie crust dough 1 red onion 1 watermelon radish (or 2 if they're on the small side) 3 eggs Salt and pepper

1. Pre-heat a 400 degree oven 2. Thinly sliced the red onion and radishes 3. Roll out the dough (It's alright if it's not a perfect circle) 4. Place a parchment paper on a baking sheet and move the dough onto it 5. Place the slices of onion on the dough, starting from the center and move outward (Leave about an inch or inch and a half of edge) 6. Crack 2 eggs on top of the onions 7. Place the slices of radishes between/around the eggs (Doesn't have to be perfect) 8. Season with salt and pepper 9. Fold the edges over the filling 10. Crack the 3rd egg, scramble it, and brush it on the dough 11. Jam the galette into the oven and bake for 30ish mins or till crust is golden brown

Few things I like to add for next time. Finish the galette with a nice drizzle of olive oil, grate some nice parmesan cheese over, and sprinkle some parsley onto it.

Pie Crust Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade but what happens when a friend gives you a big bag of plums? This was my dilemma couple weeks ago. "Sure," I said to my friend while she handed me a giant ziplock bag of tiny plums. Her uncle had sent her lots and lots, which he grows in his backyard in California and she was happy to get rid of some.

You know what's not fun? Taking tiny pits out from tiny plums.

Facebook and Instagram were great help, with people giving me ideas for what to do with the plums. From jam to pies to cobblers to sangria to sorbet. Though I ended finding my inspiration from Tara O'Brady's plum sauce in her plum rippled ginger crunch ice cream recipe.

But what do I do with the plum sauce?

Use it in ice cream sandwiches!

Instead of making cookies, I decided to make pie crust cookies. I still haven't master the art of cookie making but I made the Four and Twenty Blackbirds pie crust once and it came out pretty good. Also there's less work in making pie crust dough, I think.

Plum Sauce: 2 lbs of plums sliced in half and pit removed 6 tablespoons 1 handful mint leaves Zest and juice of 1 lemon

I'm sorry about the amount of plums. I'm guessing it. I don't own a weight and wasn't able to find out how many pounds of plums my friend gave me. I just know that I stood in the kitchen for a long time and removed pits from 50 mini plums aka enough to fill a half sheet pan.

Place plums, sugar, and mint into a pan/pot over medium heat. Stir it occasionally. Lower the flame to low when the plums begin to soften. Mush them up a bit. When all the plums have soften, push them through a sieve over a bowl. Then pour the plum sauce back into the pan/pot over low flames. Add the lemon zest and juice and stir them into the sauce. Taste it now. Too tart? Add a little bit more sugar.

Simmer the sauce for a minute or two and then pour it into a jar. This yields about 8oz. Let it chill in the fridge.

Pie Crust Cookies: I used the Four and Twenty Blackbirds pie crust dough recipe for the cookies.

Roll out your dough and use whatever you like to cut the cookies out. Then brush them with an egg wash and top with a generous sprinkling of sugar. Bake till golden.

When your cookies are done, let them cool a bit before assembling the sandwiches.

Hhhmmmmm these came out pretty darn good. Buttery cookies, tart plum sauce with vanilla ice cream (store bought, sorry). Maybe my next step is to make my own ice cream?