Pastel goreng is one of our favorite snacks back home. It is easy to find and relatively cheap. It is fried, that is why it is one of my favorite. (Most) Fried food is delicious. We can find it also here, at certain shops but of course, it is not as cheap as back home and to be honest, it usually does not have the authentic taste I am looking for.
Since we sometimes want snacks, and it will be easier if we do not have to order in advance or make a trip to certain shop in the city, and most importantly that I have more time at home, I decided to make some. As usual, I love to make a bigger batch, not only 1-recipe-for-1-time eating. The biggest problem for me is actually to find a space to store the frozen food in the freezer.
I managed to make around 24 pieces. My husband helped me to fry 8 pieces and I stored the rest of the pastel goreng for the next time. When we first let our children to try, they said: hmm... niet lekker. Meaning: It is not delicious. They just took one bite.
BUT, I did not give up.
Yesterday, I fried some pastel goreng, and served it after they came back from school and judo class. Hungry boys love food. *evil smile* And they were upset that I only gave them 1 piece per person. Tim, our youngest was so upset and cried for a few minutes because he saw his older brother, Patrick and their father were still eating their share, while his was already finished earlier.
Anyway, it was a happy ending.
I fried the pastel in the morning, after I brought the kids to school (around 10-11AM) and my husband ate it around 18.00PM. He said that it was still crunchy. I kept the pastel only on a plate covered by plastic wrap.
If you want to try to make your own, here is the recipe. As a note: it is quite time consuming, especially if we roll the skin manually.
Ingredients:
For the skin
500 gr all purpose flour + 4 tbs maizena flour
1-2 eggs (if the egg is big, 1 is probably enough. I used 2 medium size eggs)
1 tsp salt
100 gr butter (melted and cooled. note: do not melt it until the colour is clear. just melt it a bit and stir the butter to melt the rest of the butter)
100-120 ml cold water
For the filling
3-4 carrot (diced into small cubes)
100-150 gr mung bean vermicelli (soaked in boiled water until soft, use the type that becomes translucent when soaked in hot boiled water)
1 handful of frozen peas
1 piece of chicken fillet (either cut or minced)
3-4 boiled eggs, each cut into 8 pieces
3 garlic, minced
1 big shallot or 3 small shallots, minced
salt and pepper
2 tbsp. sweet soy sauce
1 tbsp. butter or oil
How to:
Filling
1. Brown the garlic and shallot with the butter/oil.
2. Add the chicken.
3. Once the chicken is getting brown, add diced carrot, frozen peas, sweet soy sauce, salt and pepper.
4. Add the vermicelli and cover the pan until the carrot is soft enough but still a bit crunchy.
5. Turn off the heat and let it cool.
Skin
1. Using the hook attachment knead the skin ingredients, except the water.
2. Add the water gradually. If needed, we can add extra water until the total is around 120 ml. The water needed depends also on the humidity at that time.
3. Knead until the dough can be rolled.
4. Leave the dough to rest for about 10-15 minutes, while preparing the cutter.
Finishing
1. Take a handful of the dough and roll it as thin as possible. It should be bigger than the size of the cutter set we are using.
2. Put the rolled dough on the cutter set, fill it with 1 piece of boiled egg and the filling.
3. Press the cutter set and cut the excess of the dough using scissor. In this way, we do not have to worry too much for shrinking dough while we are assembling the pastel.
4. Repeat this for the rest of the dough and filling.
5. Heat oil enough to cover at least half of the thickness of the pastel. Fry the pastel and turn the pastel to fry the other side of it.
6. If you want to freeze them, cover each pastel with baking paper before freezing to avoid the pastels to stick to each other.
Here is the pastel before being fried:
And after being fried:
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