Harlow Chinese School Cooking Course – Buns, Soup and Pork

After discovering the Harlow Chinese School‘s cooking courses earlier this year, we were anxiously awaiting the next course to attend. As they are aiming to do this each and every month, we were prepared for March. The cooking course this time had a big variety of food; stuffed buns, flower buns, corn and chicken soup, and char siu pork. Unlike the last time we attended, some of the food that was being made was demonstrated only this time, but we really did get our fill of knowledge and food.

We started off by making the stuffed buns, which Sun taught us how to make. The dough and filling was already made – they did spend time talking about what was in the filling and how to make the dough. We all divided into different tables and set to trying our own hand at making them. This was a pretty easy bun to make, we just needed to roll out and divide the dough, then practice folding and pinching the top. After a few practice rounds, we were given the filling to do it for real. These stuffed buns went into a giant steamer basket, which then went into the kitchen. While they were steaming, we moved onto the corn soup.

The corn soup was made by Mr. Man, who is from Hong Kong, unlike Sun. They both explained they had different seasonings and styles for both the soup and the pork that they were creating. This soup was very simple; water set to boil, mince chicken added in, then stock powder, seasoning, and cans of cream corn. Some corn flour was added to thicken it. Dann got selected to crack and scramble some eggs, which got poured in right at the end after the heat was turned off. A little bit of sesame oil was added to season once again. It’s a simple soup but very comforting! While the soup was keeping warm, the marinade for the pork was shown, which had a bunch of ingredients I had not had before. One of the nice things about the Harlow Chinese School is that they do tell us where to get these ingredients and give the various ingredient names some time for photos to be taken.

Once all of the pork was marinated, we were told that it needs to sit over night, but then they took out a bunch of trays of the already cooked pork, which smelled delicious. All of the soup and pork presentation was done in the kitchen, which felt really close to the oven and gave us a good look into how to cook it. They did also explain that we couldn’t cook the soup due to the flame and being at the stove, so it was fantastic to watch it.

Everyone then went back into the main hall, as our buns, the pork and the soup were all done. Everyone got their plates, filled their bowls with soup (and the chopped spring onion topping, along with spicy chili for me!), grabbed our buns, and took as much pork as we wanted. The pork really was delicious, I could have eaten it all day. There was absolutely plenty of food, and eating all together was so fun, as everyone commented on the tastes, fluffiness of buns, and how much fun this all was. Harlow Chinese School does allow us to box up anything we want to take home, and I had saved two of my buns and a bunch of pork, which was just as good the next day, but we weren’t done cooking yet!

After our feast, we got a demonstration on how to make flower buns, which are quite simple in taste but have a beautiful look. This was made with the same bun dough as the stuffed buns, but this time spread into a big square, oil and salt added onto it, then a bunch of chopped chives. There is then a special folding technique that makes them look like a beautiful flower when they are done! This took a few attempts, but came out fantastic. They then went into steam, but as they are not full of meat, took a short amount of time before we got to try them. These buns were really delicious as well – and a lot of mine came out perfect! Dann got the hang of folding the flower buns too! As always, the general feel of the Harlow Chinese School’s Cooking Course was lovely, with so many new cooks and people just interested in eating and hanging out together. It’s such a fantastic afternoon event that will fill you up too!

You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!