Mee Koo are buns made of flour with skin coloured pink or red; they are fluffy with a slight sweet taste. They are usually shaped in the figure eight (as shown in the photos above) and sold in pairs. Or, they can be found in the shape of the tortoise. peaches or dome. Those tortoise-shaped mee koo are usually bought to be offered to the deities on the first and fifteenth day of the lunar months. Peach-shaped mee koo are usually made to order for the birthdays of the elderly members of a household. Nowadays, we can see dome-shaped mee koo; these are also for offerings to the deities.
I love eating mee koo; most of the time I just steamed them and ate them plain or with a spread of pure butter. However, sometimes I dunked them into piping hot coffee while at other times I coated them with beaten eggs and pan-fried them. Mee koo can be easily bought from where I came from. However, when I moved to KL forty years ago, it was very difficult to buy them. Thus, whenever I went home, I would buy at least ten pairs to bring back to KL. They were then frozen and eaten slowly. Nowadays, mee koo are available in KL especially on the first and fifteenth day of the lunar months for prayers to the deities.
I have learnt to make mee koo and I would say that making them is easy. It requires few ingredients and can be made manually. The following recipe is from Ms Lisa Yip, a member of Daily Homecook Meal.
Ingredients:
- 500 g pau flour (Will produce 4 pieces of mee koo. Scale up to yield more.)
- 100 g sugar
- 1 tsp yeast
- 240 - 250 ml water
- 3 tbsp corn oil
- 4 pieces of parchment paper, 20 cm x 14 cm
- Pink/red colouring.
Method:
- Mix flour, sugar, yeast and corn oil in a large mixing bowl.
- Add water slowly to the flour mixture. Do not add all the water at one go as the dough may be too watery and sticky.
- Knead the ingredients until a smooth dough is formed and that it no longer sticks to the fingers. (Add more water, spoonful by spoonful, if the dough is dry and hard.)
- Knead for at least half an hour so that you will obtain a very fine crumb after the dough is steamed.
- Divide the dough into 4 parts.
- Shape each part according to your preference.
- After shaping, place the dough onto the parchment paper.
- Cover the dough with a towel and let it proof until it doubles in size.
- Apply the pink/red colouring on the surface of the dough just before steaming.
- Boil some water in the steamer.
- Place the dough into the steamer when the water has boiled.
- (You may wrap the cover of the steamer with a cloth to prevent water from dripping onto the dough.)
- Steam the dough over high heat for about 20 minutes.
- Remove the mee koo immediately from the steamer when they are cooked.
- Let the mee koo cool down completely before keeping them in an air-tight container.