The Gift of Food: Anhui Bing

My in-laws have always gifted us with food. Whenever we fly out to visit them in Colorado, we can be sure that a steaming bowl of noodles and an assortment of side dishes will be waiting for us, no matter how late we arrive. When they fly out to see us, we can count on enjoying a long vacation from cooking while being fed homemade spring rolls, dumplings, stir-fried dishes too numerous to mention.

My in-laws’ gift of food does not end there. When we were first married, they hand packed bags laden with tightly packaged stir-fries, sticky rice, and other treats for us to carry on the plane. After several years of dragging ten-pound bags of Chinese food through airports, we lovingly convinced them that their homemade Chinese treats were best enjoyed while in their company. 

Several years later, we again made the trip out to see them, this time with two little ones in tow. My father-in-law discovered that the kids’ car seat bag was an excellent place to store his specialty, Anhui bing.

My father-in-law describes bing as “Chinese pizza,” though the only similarity they share with this favorite food of Americans (in my opinion) is their round shape.  

Anhui bing are more like meat pies, about eight inches in diameter, with finely diced bits of stir-fried pork and pickled vegetables spread between very thin layers of dough (think Croissant pastry layers). 




The meat and dough layers alternate and the whole pie is then wrapped in a final layer of dough, which turns a lovely crispy brown when pan-fried with a dash of oil. 

Bing are addicting and vanish remarkably fast, which is too bad, because from what I've understood from my father-in-law, they are very time consuming to make.

Back to our trip from our in-laws: Imagine our surprise when we opened the car seat bag and found bing plastered to our daughter’s car seat! (Disclosure: we travelled domestically; we know better than to bring food back from our international trips!)

My in-laws spent Christmas with us this year, and as usual, my father-in-law brought stacks of freshly made bing. One night, as he watched my daughter quietly eat, licking her fingers after the last bite, he joked, “I should send Lulu (her pet name) her own private supply of bing every month.”  We laughed, but I saw a twinkle in his eye that hinted at a "Eureka!" moment.

Sure enough, one week after he and my mother-in-law flew back home, a heavy package arrived at our door. Inside were stacks of freshly made bing! My daughter was thrilled, my husband was giddy, and my dog--well, it turns out that he likes bing just as much as the rest of us. A few days ago, he swiped a lone bing off the counter and delicately nibbled his way through half of it.

I don’t know how to make Anhui bing--yet. This recipe was handed down from my husband’s paternal grandmother (who grew up in Anhui province) to my father-in-law. I hope that one day soon, my father-in-law will share his recipe with the next generation so this family treat may live on!

What gifts of food does your family share with you?  

Cinnamon Mooncake Cookies (Holiday Recap)

After a luxuriously long holiday break with the fam, I'm back to blogging! I didn't do as much baking this year, opting instead for rest (after a long virus--yuck!) and spending time with my in-laws and kiddos. 

One recipe my daughter and I did try this year was Cinnamon Buddha Cookies (seen here at Spoon and Chair) using the mooncake molds my husband brought back from China earlier this year.






Spoon and Chair's recipe (which is based on Dorie Greenspan's Sweet Tart Dough Recipe) calls for Mooncake cookie molds, not mooncake molds--which I think are deeper--but we improvised and used the smaller of my mooncake molds (approx. 3 in. in height). They worked out just fine.

The dough is a breeze to make. The recipe calls for mixing flour, powdered sugar, cinnamon, and then butter and 1 egg yolk in a food processor (see recipe for exact measurements). 

This is then chilled in the fridge for two or more hours. We'll probably reduce the chill time next time we make these; two hours of chilling made for a pretty tough dough. We really had to work it into the mold with our fingers. We then used a knife to scrape off the extra dough in the mold (to make cookie prettier!). 

 Making these cookies is a great way to relieve holiday stress. The recipe notes that you have to "whack" the molds against the counter to pop the cookies out.  With our molds, "whack" was an understatement. We had to "ka-whack" the dang things for the cookies to pop out.  We followed Carolyn Phillips' suggestion at Out to Lunch with @MadameHuang to flour the molds each time before adding new dough. Without the flour, we would have had to literally dig the dough out with our fingers.  

Mooncake cookies are a great all-around cookie for holidays---Christmas, New Years, and Chinese New Year (which is next on our family holiday countdown. Put it on your calendar: February 10!). They taste wonderful--like slightly sweet, cinnamon-y shortbread. Plus, when they're baking, the cookies make your house smell like Christmas, due to their 3 tsp of cinnamon.  And did I mention how pretty these cookies are? 

Bakers note: We followed the recipe's instructions and baked for 20 min. Our oven might be too hot, but this left the cookies a little overdone. We'll reduce baking time next go around. Also, with our molds, the recipe only made eleven cookies--which means that they disappeared in a matter of hours. They are that good.