Thursday, September 24, 2015

You Tiao | Chinese Cruller | Chinese Oil Stick| Chinese Doughnut

You Tiao, is the chinese doughnut also know as Chinese Cruller, Chinese Oil Stick .It's usually serve with soy milk or congee as breakfast.This dish is very popular in East and South East Asian countries like Indonesia, Thai, Vietnam, Philippines, Malayasia & Singapore. In each country, they called them with various name and it's one of the popular street food in those countries.

Actually, i loved the process of making this, especially shaping them, it was so much fun.I referred almost 20 recipes for this. They use various leavening stage like yeast , ammonium bicarbonate, Sodium bicarbonate, Baking powder, Alum Powder and also i read that ammonium in food is not good for health , so i stick with the recipe using baking powder alone as leavening agent.

I tried it twice, first time, it's total disaster, it doesn't puff up and it's dense inside, i didn't leave the dough in refrigerator for overnight,may be due to that , it didn't puff up i think. Next time, i followed the recipe blindly without any change, always fry the first one, if it didn't puff up, put in refrigerator for more time & try afterwards(suggested in one of the source recipe).

Chinese Cruller

Preparation Time : 12 hrs | Cooking Time : 20 mins | Serves : 10
Recipe Category: Snacks | Recipe Cuisine: Chinese

Ingredients

Recipe source - here

All purpose flour - 1 cup

Baking Powder -1 tsp

Oil - 1 1/2 tbsp

Normal cold water - 50 ml(approximate)

Sugar - 1 tsp

Salt - to taste.

Procedure

First add all the dry ingredients(Flour,salt, sugar,baking powder) in a bowl, mix it well, then add oil and water ,mix it well to form a dough. Knead the dough for 3 mins.

Rest it for 1 hr, after that take the dough, stretch the dough at one end and punch it together, do the same process for 20 min. Then put it in cling wrap , covet it & refrigerate for overnight.

Next morning, take the dough and keep it at room temperature for 1 hr or until it comes back to room temperature.Grease the working surface with oil, take the dough and elongated into rectangle shape with 1/2 inch thickness & 2 inch width.

Cut into 1/2 inch strips(try to cut into even strips, i got 10 strips). Take one strip and place it over the other strip.

Now take a lengthy needle or bamboo stick , dip in water and make a impression at the center along lengthwise.

Heat the oil in the deep kadai or pan, when it's hot(if you drop a small piece of dough, it should be immediately come up,that's the correct temperature ), take the strips with two hands, elongate a bit and drop in oil, immediately it will puff up.

Rotate it continuously for even coloring and it will ready in 1.5 to 2 mins.Do the same for the remaining. Fry one at a time.

Super crispy You Tiao is ready to serve , Serve it with Soy milk or congee.We had it with regular milk.

Notes

Knead the dough as per metioned timing and also keep the dough overnight at refrigerator, it will help to puff up nicely.
Oil temperature is very important, bring to correct temperature before drop each strips in oil
The dough is very delicate to work, make the impression in dough,just before dropping in oil.
Use bigger pan for frying, it elongate much, mine get bends because of small kadai.