tea time

Chinese bakeries aren’t terribly common around Southeast Michigan but we have at least two that I know of. One is on John R, South of 14 mile road, in a small strip mall that also contains a decent Chinese restaurant (Mandarin Dining), a good Chinese grocery (China Merchandise) and a Chinese barbecue. The other is Eastern Accents in Ann Arbor, on Fourth Avenue, North of Liberty. Both offer a good selection of baked sweet and savory buns and cakes, although the Mt. Clements shop has a bit more of a selection of some of the dishes that tend to appeal to more purely Chinese tastes.


We usually think of Chinese cuisine as being dominated by rice as a starch, but that’s in the South. In the North, wheat is grown, and the cuisines of that region haves plenty of noodles and breads. The food you find in Chinese bakeries combines traditional Chinese ingredients and methods with those of the West, the result being a sort of hybrid cuisine that appeals to both tastes.


The most common savory you’ll find in a Chinese bakery is the baked bun, or bao, typically stuffed with pork and seasonings, though there are chicken buns, tuna buns, vegetable buns and of course sweet buns as well. My favorite hybrid cuisine is the hot dog bun, which is simply bun dough wrapped around a hot dog and baked. Something to keep in mind if you’re dining out with a picky youngster.


Sweet buns include cakes covered with fruit, various puddings made with fruit and agar, pineapple buns, custard buns, custard tarts, and that most Chinese of flavors, the red bean paste bun. Sweetened red beans are used in many Chinese sweets. This sounds odd at first until you consider that we do very similar things in the west with sweetened vegetable pastes, like pumpkin pie.


Then there’s my personal favorite, the sesame ball. This consists of a ball of sticky, glutinous rice, with a sweet or savory filling, rolled in sesame seeds and deep fried. Eastern Accents has these filled with bean paste, but a more traditional Chinese bakery will also have them stuffed with a filling made from dried shrimp that is out of this world. They’re oily, and very rich.

Traditional bakeries also typically feature Zongzi, a sort of dumpling made from glutinous rice, with a sweet filling, like red or yellow bean, or a savory filling, with include pork, Chinese mushrooms, salted egg, and chestnuts. They're wrapped in banana, bamboo, lotus or pandan leaves and steamed, and server steaming hot at the table. I often buy a half dozen of the savory type, frozen, at my local Chinese grocery and keep them in the freezer at home for a quick lunch. Three minutes in the microwave and you've got a very filling, rib-sticking meal.


Glutinous rice is also known as sweet rice, or sticky rice- but don't confuse it with the short grained Japanese rice used to make Sushi that some call "sticky ricy". This is a different animal entirely. It's mainly grown in Thailand and Laos, where it makes up over 80% of the rice crop, but it's eaten all over Asia. Despite the name, it actually contains no gluten; it's termed glutinous for its texture. If you've ever had Japanese moochi, you've tasted it. Moochi is made by pounding the steamed rice until it develops the smooth, elastic consistency characteristic of good moochi.

I don't have a really reliable home recipe for Chinese buns or Zongzi, but I do have a pretty good peanut butter sandwich recipe, so let's go with that instead:

• Toast two slices of real rye bread- the proper kind with caraway seeds and a dusting of corn flour. I recommend Avalon or or Whole Foods. Zingerman's comes close but doesn't have the caraway.
  
• Spread both sides with natural peanut butter- smooth or chunky, your choice.
  
• Add a layer of sliced banana, and (this is the secret part) a layer of sliced strawberries.
  
• Assemble sandwich.
  
• Cut in half for easier handling.
  
• Eat.