My uncle is good at cooking. He can cook delicious dishes, noodles and snacks. He can even make rice wine by himself. Among those snacks he cooks, a kind of snacks called Maibing is my favorite. I have eaten his Maibing since I was a little girl. Last time I paid a visit to him and asked him to teach me how to make Maibing. I wrote down the cooking procedures to share with you!

Ingredients:

wheat flour:700grams; one egg; garlic: 4 cloves of garlic

fatty pork, lean pork, dried preserved vegetables: appropriate amount

Step One: Soak dried preserved vegetables in water for about 40 minutes. In the meantime, cut fatty pork and lean pork into thin slices. Prepare more fatty pork than lean pork. Some people even just prepare fatty pork because they think fatty pork in Maibing tastes much better than lean pork in Maibing. Of course, you can only use lean meat if you’ve got a plan to lose some weight. Anyway, there is always fatty pork in traditional and authentic Maibing. In general, I don’t eat fatty meat and I don’t like it very much. But I do care for the fatty meat in Maibing. The crust of Maibing is dry and the oil from the fatty pork is just a perfect complement to it. The combination of the crust made of wheat flour and the fatty pork makes Maibing smell and taste great! Then season fatty/lean pork slices with a little salt, rice wine and gourmet powder for 30 minutes.

Step Two: In 40 minutes’ time, remove dried preserved vegetables into a colander and take out water. Then cut dried preserved vegetables into small pieces. Chop up 4 cloves of garlic. After heating some cooking oil in a wok, put dried preserved vegetables in the wok. Stir-fry a bit. Then add chopped garlic, a little sugar and gourmet powder. Stir-fry them together for a while and then scoop up.

Step Three: Add an egg, a little salt, appropriate amount of water to the wheat flour and mix them thoroughly with chopsticks. Make sure you add the water slowly and moderately. Then knead the dough until the surface of the dough becomes smooth. Put aside to rest for about 15 minutes.

Step Four:When time’s up, knead the dough a bit again. Roll the dough into a loaf on a floured surface and then cut it into 4 pieces as even as possible.(How many pieces you can cut into depends on how much wheat flour you use.) Hold a piece of dough in your hand and try to shape it into something that looks like a bowl. Put a layer of cooked dried preserved vegetables on the bottom first, and then add a layer of seasoned pork slices on it. At last, add a layer of cooked dried preserved vegetables on the top and press the dried preserved vegetables down with a spoon. Slightly and carefully press the outside dough with your fingers to try to seal the filling inside. I don't think it’s easy, especially for a beginner. After you’ve done with it, it looks like a big ball. Then put it on a floured surface. Use a rolling pin to slowly roll out into a flat circle. Roll it out as thin as possible. But make sure not to reveal the filling and seal all of the filling with dough.

Step Five: The following step is to bake Maibing. There are several different cookers which can be used for baking Maibing. If you buy Maibing on the street or from a small shop, they usually use a huge cylinder-shaped iron cooker to bake Maibing. As for home-made Maibing, you can buy a small electric baking pan. It is said that it’s very convenient to use the electric baking pan. But on that day we didn’t have it. So we we used a common wok. Heat the wok over medium-low heat and then place Maibing into the wok. Heat the Maibing until a little brown on each side. Then hold Maibing with one hand (You can wear a kitchen mitt because the Maibing is very hot then.) and roll it in the wok just like rolling a hoop in order to make the edges baked. After that, turn the heat down to low. Put a piece of tile in the wok. Place Maibing on the tile. Cover the wok with a lid and let it bake for about 30 minutes.

Maibing is a very popular local snack. I want to make it by myself sometime, following the above steps. Uncle’s Maibing is always more delicious than the one bought from small shops because he makes Maibing specially for us.I think if you cook food for someone you love or care about with all your heart, the food will definitely taste great!