Tea Lifestyle: Recipes- Chinese Cheese Burger without cheese paired with Pu Erh Tea

I am always amazed about foods from all over the world in that you can always find similar foods in different region.

Even though I am not a big meat eater, I do try to get some proteins to keep balanced. And I tend to use as little oil as possible in all my cooking, as I am a big believer of balancing in life.

My lunch today? Chinese cheese burger without cheese (you can add cheese  if you like, de-li-ci-ous!!), or 肉夹馍 in Chinese.

Chinese styled burger has over thousands years history. In Qin Dynasty, people had a tradition of making "cold meat" (the style of meat they can store in winter time, normally very salty), using over 20 spices or herbs to marinade the meat then cook over a long time so that when you eat, the meat could almost melt in your mouth, but it does not taste too greesy.

In Western part of China, people used to call it 馍夹肉, but it sounds like "there's no meat between the two pieces of bread. So people changed it to is 肉夹馍, filled with meat between the two breads

Chinese Burger-肉夹馍， paired with Pu Er Tea

1 cup flour (3 bread)

1 tbsp yeast

¾ tsp baking powder

Slightly more than 1/3 cup warm water

Chicken meat (2 drumstick) sliced in thin roughly 2 inches long piece.

¼  Onion

Some fresh cilantro chopped in small pieces

¼ tsp grounded cumin

¼ tsp Paprika

1 tbsp soy sauce

Half lemon

1 tbsp olive oil,

Pinch of salt

Instructions:

Bread:

Dissolve the yeast in warm water (body temp). Mix flour, baking powder, and water together. Put in warm place for 1 hr until the dough become double sizes. Divide the dough into 3 pieces evenly, make it a ½ inches thick round bread.

Heat the pan and put the 3 breads in the pan. Flip them accassionally to get both sides cooked.  Until you see both sides have little gold or brown color, you know it's done.

Chicken:

Chop the onion into small pieces. Heat the pan, add 1 tbsp olive oil, stir fry onion until soft, little brown, add chicken, stir for another 3-4 minutes, squeeze the lemon, add soy sauce, salt, Paprika, cumin . Stir for another 2 minutes or until fully cooked.

Mix the cooked chicken with cilantro. slice the bread horizontally into 2 pieces so that you can stuff it with chicken mixture.

Brew some Pu Erh Tea then you are ready!!

Hmmmm...Yum Yum!!! Pu Erh tea helps digest the chicken and leave your mouth full of tea aroma;)). The mix of tea (bitter, naturally aromatic), chicken (juicy and flavorful) and bread (sweet) makes it a delight and fulfilled lunch and leaves you enough energy for the rest of the day!!!

I was sooo hugary when I was preparing the bread that i forgot to disolve the yeast;))) hahahahaha... it turned out not too bad, but I saw strange yeast on the surface of the bread even after cooked;)))