Savory Meat Mooncakes
Mid-Autumn festival is coming up and its time for mooncakes! Unlike the popularized sweet mooncakes that’s molded and filled with a sweet red bean paste.. These are savory mooncakes! Also known as 鲜肉月饼 (Xian Rou Yue Bing) They’re stuffed with juicy ground pork in a flaky pastry dough.
Each region in China has their own take on a mooncake during this occasion and my family, coming from Shanghai, we’re known around this area for this type of mooncake!
They can be found year round but during the weeks leading up to mid-autumn festival you can find long lines of people intertwining the blocks of Shanghai just to get a fresh batch of juicy mooncakes.
Of course my version is incomparable to the ones in Shanghai but it’s good enough. I’m able to preserve and share a special piece of my culture that’s often hard to find.
So I’m glad this recipe found you and you’re able to enjoy and experience a piece of my culture.
Recipe (makes 4 mooncakes)
Wet Dough
110g AP Flour
15g Shortening
15g Vegetable Oil
55g Hot Water
Dry Dough
60g AP Flour
30g Shortening
Pork Filling
200g ground pork (30% fast 70% lean)
10g granulated sugar
3g salt
18g Oyster Sauce
12g sesame oil
12g shaoxing wine
10g grated or crushed ginger
20g chopped scallion (optional)
10g water
1/2 tsp white pepper
Instructions
Mix all Wet Dough ingredients in stand mixer for 5 mins. Leave on the side covered.
Mix all dry dough ingredients with hand until smooth. Leave on the side covered.
Divide wet dough into 4 equal parts (40g~42g). Divide dry dough into 4 equal parts.
Wrap dry dough into wet dough and leave on the side covered to rest.
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 for another 5 mins.
Take rolled up dough and widen them by 2 inches (as shown in video). This helps with the vertical rolling. Repeat step 6 and allow all them to rest for another 5 mins.
Take the dough and bring the ends together to create a ball shape. We are now ready to roll dough to make the wrappers. Take the dough and have the side with the ends visibly facing you. Roll them out to approx. 4 inches diameter.
Place 42g of pork onto the wrapper and slowly bring all sides together to close them.
Place the closed side onto a non-stick pan (low-medium) for 7 mins covered. After 7 mins, turnover and start searing the other side for another 7 mins covered.
Place mooncakes into air fryer for 15mins for 400F. (depending on your air fryer, it can also be a 20min cooking time)
Enjoy with your family and friends and be careful not get the flakes on yourself!
It can get a bit messy ;)
