Wintermelon filling

monpetitchoux · #1 10-03-2001, 01:47 PM

Anyone out there can teach me how to make Chinese winter melon filling (Dong gwa yung) or tell me where I can learn? It's the stuff inside of a Low poh beng. I haven't had very good ones since I moved to the Bay Area. The stuff I ate in the New York of my childhood is what I want. I'm told that that's what the stuff from Hong Kong is like. The stuff they pass off here in the Bay Area has so many corners cut that I refuse to recognize it as a proper winter melon filling. Bleh.

I realize that this is pretty obscure but I thought it'd be worth a shot.

cape chef · #2 10-03-2001, 03:20 PM

I am not sure if this is what you are looking for,

Winter melon pond "Or soup"

1 cup winter melon
2 cups chicken stock
4 dried black mushrooms reconstituted
some sliced ginger
Cooked ham
s&p
scallion.

Peel the melon and simmer in water with till tender.dice and add to hot stock ,mushrooms,ginger and ham,simmer 30 minutes pour into a melon bowl and topped with scallion.
cc

monpetitchoux · #3 10-09-2001, 10:30 AM

Thanks, Cape Chef, for your reply. But I'm looking for a sweet filling for Chinese pastries that's based on Wintermelon. All applications I know and practice for wintermelon is savory (like your soup recipe). The sweet wintermelon filling tastes like tutti frutti but, as far as I can tell, has no additional flavorings, although some pastry makers do add in stuff like candied citron, nuts or waterchestnut. This I really don't care for as it interferes with the delicate flavor of the wintermelon and gives me the impression that the pastry maker is trying to cut corners by adding fillers to the filling. My mother said that this wintermelon filling was quite costly to produce because of the ingredients and the labor. But it's not like the pastry shops don't make it back. I remember making multiple trips to a bakery in NYC Chinatown when I was a kid just to stand in line in hopes of securing a box of mooncakes made with this filling. The bakery did not take orders so the public had to depend on luck or perseverence. No matter how much the bakery said they were making that year, they always ran out. We scored only a few times. The rest of the year, we bought a lesser pastry made with the same filling.

So, I've been trying to learn how to make this filling for a long time. I can't read much Chinese, but my father says that he hasn't seen recipes for this filling in cookbooks anyway. So I am hoping that perhaps someone who posts will be able to help me out. The reason I want to learn is because I want to see if I can make Pate de Fruit with it. Some day, when I take charge of a kitchen, I'd like to include such a treat on a gourmandise plate.

mudbug · #4 10-23-2001, 04:09 PM

It might be easier to stick to the "English" version of what you're talking about. What your looking for sure sounds like a Moon Cake filled with winter melon paste. Now actually tracking that down might take some time. Try inquiring at Asian Recipe Forums...

Look here at Moon Cake Molds and scroll down almost half way, looks like you can aquire a recipe here: http://authentic.com.my

I'm not sure I see exactly where the recipe can be obtained but the first link says it's available thru the second.

Hope this helps!

cchiu

monpetitchoux · #5 10-24-2001, 04:43 PM

CChiu, I have a feeling you'll get me closer to the information I want. But the link doesn't seem to work for the first address you listed. I get a message that the address is not right. Can you please check for me again? Thank you. The second link gets me to a site that has some neat molds. But not a recipe.

mudbug · #6 10-26-2001, 01:31 PM

http://www.berjualbeli.com/cookery/moon-cake.htm

mudbug · #7 10-26-2001, 04:41 PM

Trying to get the link right:

Moon Cakes

panini · #8 10-26-2001, 06:23 PM

I can't remember, but I know what your talking about. Just off Mott St.? I believe it is honeydew and watermelon pureed and reduced. Boil soy milk, puree, sugar. add Midori and thicken with cornstarch and eggyolk mixture.
I will look in my old recipes tonight and let you know what I find.

monpetitchoux · #9 10-27-2001, 01:16 AM

Right on Mott Street. It is a bakery called Kwong Wah. It's still there. Folks liked to get mooncake at this place because the pastry skin made here was so delicately thin. Personally, I liked the thicker skin made by less experienced pastry makers because the pastry was the novelty for me. Lotus seed paste was a constant part of my diet so getting a huge hunk of it in the form of mooncake was not so special. But the wintermelon paste was very special. For some reason, it tasted so much better in the mooncake than in a loh po beng, a lesser, more commonplace pastry, even from the same bakery. My mother, who still lives in New York, says that the wintermelon filling is not as good these as it used to be those days. But I'll bet it's still much better than the stuff we get here in SF.

mudbug · #10 11-20-2001, 12:43 PM

monpetitchoux,

Your question has had me periodically curious... You might want to double check your Chinese to English translations and spellings. Some are much more common than others... try looking up information on "Lao Po Bing" instead of "Low poh beng" as spelled in your first post.

This actually translates as "Concubine's Cakes" or "Wife's Cakes".

mudbug · #11 08-15-2003, 07:48 PM

More recipes for various mooncakes.

mudbug · #12 07-22-2005, 05:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by panini

I can't remember, but I know what your talking about. Just off Mott St.? I believe it is honeydew and watermelon pureed and reduced. Boil soy milk, puree, sugar. add Midori and thicken with cornstarch and eggyolk mixture.
I will look in my old recipes tonight and let you know what I find.

Ever find anything panini?