Snacks

3 recipes

Siopao

A yeasted dough enriched with milk, sugar and butter rises for 1 hour. Filling: pork mince browns with garlic, soy sauce, oyster sauce, brown sugar and Chinese five-spice, simmered for 10 minutes till thick. Eggs hard-boil, quarter. Dough divides into 12 portions, each rolls into a 12 cm disc thicker in the middle than the edges. Filling spoons in with a quarter of egg. Edges pleat up over the filling like a money purse, twisted closed. Buns rest for 20 minutes on parchment squares; steam for 15 minutes in batches.

2 hours 30 minutes Serves12

Turon

Saba (cooking) bananas halve lengthways; if using regular bananas, choose under-ripe ones. Jackfruit (ripe, fresh or canned) cuts into matchstick strips. A spring-roll wrapper lays flat; banana half plus 2-3 jackfruit strips go in the centre; dusts with brown sugar. Wrapper rolls up, edges sealed with water. The whole rolled turon dredges through more brown sugar. Fries in moderately hot oil 3-4 minutes till the sugar caramelises gold-amber on the surface. Eats hot.

40 minutes Serves12

Ukoy (Shrimp Fritters)

Small whole head-on shrimp rinse but stay shell-on (shells provide crunch and flavour). A batter of rice flour, plain flour, water and egg goes loose. Grated squash, mung-bean sprouts and spring onion mix in. A ladleful drops into hot oil, with 3-4 shrimp pressed on top, fries for 4 minutes till crisp gold, flips, another 2 minutes. Drains on rack. Eats with garlic-vinegar dip.

45 minutes Serves12