鲜肉月饼 - Savory Meat Mooncake
Another year and another Mooncake Recipe! That is the beauty of tradition :)
If you haven’t read about the importance of Mid-Autumn festival, you can read about what this dish means to me (here).
You’ve probably tried sweet mooncakes before but move on over sweetie because savory mooncake is in town. Unlike the sweet mooncakes these are a staple in the Suzhou and surrounding regions of China.
During my covid days, I used to make and sell these from my house. They were a major hit and I still have people asking me till this day to bring these back every year.
There’s a good reason why everyone loves these mooncakes so much. Theres something so satisfying about combining flaky dough with juicy meat. Maybe it’s the way the many layers soaks up all of the juices. Ooooofff 😮💨
It’s so good even my Chinese mom DIRECTLY said to me that my mooncakes are the best things I ever cooked for her (hehe) Maybe because it reminded her of home or maybe it was actually really good. No matter the reason….Thanks mom. Because of the tedious prep that goes into this dish, I really needed to hear that. It’s really a labor of love.
While I’m not making them this time around. I hope you can get to making these Chinese delicacy at home with the updated recipe that I have! (maybe impress your chinese mom as well and pretty much everyone else haha)
Recipe (makes 8 mooncakes)
Wet Dough
220g AP Flour
30g Shortening
30g Vegetable Oil
110g Hot Water
Dry Dough
120g AP Flour
60g Shortening
Pork Filling
400g ground pork (30% fast 70% lean)
20g granulated sugar
6g salt
30g Oyster Sauce
24g sesame oil
24g shaoxing wine
1-2 tsp Dark soy Sauce
12g grated ginger
20g chopped scallion
10g water
1/2 tsp white pepper
Extra chopped scallions if you want to add more (as shown in video)
Instructions
Mix all Wet Dough ingredients in stand mixer for 5 mins. Let it rest covered for 10mins
Mix all dry dough ingredients with hand until smooth. Cover.
Divide wet dough into equal parts (40g-42g). Divide dry dough into 8 equal parts (19-20g)
Wrap dry dough into wet dough and let it rest covered for 20mins.
While the dough is resting, mix in all of pork filling ingredients in a separate bowl. Mix until the filling looks pasty and holds together well.
Take the balls of dough and roll them out vertically at the ends. Once rolled out, take the top end and roll it towards you to the other end. We are doing this to create the layers. Allow them to rest covered for another 10 mins.
After done resting, repeat step 6. Rest covered for another 10mins.
We are now ready to roll dough to make the wrappers: Take the piece of dough and bring the ends together to create a ball shape. Have the side of the dough with the ends visibly facing you. Roll them out to approx. 4 inches diameter. ( or however big you need to make stuffing them easy)
Place 45g of pork onto the wrapper (optional: 1T chopped scallions) and slowly bring all sides together to close them.
You can now stamp the mooncakes but if you don’t have a stamp that’s fine :) They come out tasting the same haha.
Place the closed side onto a non-stick pan (low-medium) for 7 mins covered (until browned). After 7 mins, turnover and start searing the other side for another 7 mins covered.
Place mooncakes into air fryer for 18-20mins at 375F. (depending on your air fryer, it can also take a little longer). For a flakier (and browner? lol) mooncake, air fry 5 mins longer.
Let them cool down a bit and enjoy! Once its cooled down, you can freeze them. Reheat by placing it into the air fryer for 15mins at 400F. It actually comes out flakier!
Happy cooking and Mid-Autumn Festival!
