[Sca-cooks] steam-baking

[Stefan li Rous]

Kiri said:
> I found the following recipe in Soup for the Qan, and we served it at our
> Festival of Kites a couple of years ago.  Everyone seemed to enjoy it....
>
>  [93.] *Chuqmin (same as "long bread")
>  White flour (ten chin), vegetable oil (one chin), Chinese flower pepper
> (one liang; roast and discard the juice), fennel (one liang; roast).
>
>  [Mix] ingredients and keep overnight.  Use leaven, salt, soda and warm
> water.  Combine this with flour [dough].  The next day add flour to thicken.
> Combine again into a dough.  Divide each chin [of dough] into two loaves.
> Put into a lung and steam.

How sure are we of this translation? "soda"? I thought that rising
agents, with the possible exception of hart's horn were unknown
until the 19th Century. Perhaps these chemical rising agents were
known to the Chinese earlier? Or maybe this "soda" is not a rising
agent and what is actually doing the rising is this "leaven" which
I guess could be ale barm.

"Put into a lung"? I thought that a lung wasn't hollow. That it was
a spongy mass. Maybe you slice the lung and sort of fold it over the
loaf? Or hollow out a lung? Still seems like a natural bag such as
a bladder would work better.

--
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas          stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****