Tau Sar Piah, a Mung Bean Pastry is a popular snack from Penang. Penang, also known as the Pearl of Orient of Malaysia is located on the north west off the penisular Malaysia. Penang Tau Sar Piah is a popular gift item. In fact, I often get Penang Tau Sar Piah from my friends who make a trip back to Malaysia.
One morning when I checked my emails, I got the Penang Tau Sar Piah recipe forwarded to me by Ben. This is his way of saying, “honey, can you make this?”. This recipe is from KookyCulinary by BlurMommy. I had adapted the recipe to 1/3 of the original recipe because my conscience told me that it’s too much to make 100 pieces.
This Penang Tau Sar Piah is a sweet and savory little pastry. You can finish it in a bite or two. It is not difficult to make but it’s time consuming. Each pastry is made with 3 little balls of dough and filing. It took me more than two hours to make 33 of this little morsel. Luckily, I had Arkensen helped me to take photos of the steps as it was during spring break that I made this. My hands were oily with the rolling of the pastry.
Ingredients
Oil Dough
- 7 tablespoons all purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons + 1/2 teaspoon oil
Water Dough
- 13 1/2 tablespoons flour
- 6 tablespoons + 1/2 teaspoon oil
- 6 tablespoons water
- 1/4 teaspoon vinegar
Filling
- 1/3 cup oil
- 5 shallots, minced
- 6 tablespoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 200g split green bean
Egg Wash
- 1 egg, beaten
Source: this recipe is adapted from http://kookyculinary.com/2011/03/27/penang-tau-sar-piah/
Yield 33
Prep time: 2 hours; Bake time: 20 to 25 minutes
Instructions
 Soak the split green beans for at least two hours, drained and steamed for 15 to 20 minutes until the beans are tender. |
 Mash the beans with a fork until you get a fine texture. |
 To make the filing, heat the oil in a frying pan. Add minced shallots and fry until fragrant but not brown. |
 Add the mashed green bean, sugar and salt.
Fry until the filling binds together. |
 Remove from frying pan, pat into a rectangle sheet and divide into 33 pieces. |
 Roll the filing into balls. |
 For the pastry, first make the oil dough by combining the oil and flour together. |
 Knead into a dough ball. Divide into 33 pieces. |
 To make the water dough, combine the flour, oil, water and vinegar in a bowl. |
 Knead into a dough ball. Divide into 33 pieces and roll into balls. |
 With all the balls ready, you can proceed with rolling the Penang Tau Sar Piah.Wrap the water dough around the oil dough. Flatten it and roll it up like a swiss roll. Stand it up and flatten again. Then roll it up again like a swiss roll. Stand it up and flatten again. Wrap the filling in the dough.
The video below illustrates how it’s done. |
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHZsrkIMHRk&w=560&h=315]
 Preheat the oven to 325F.
Egg wash the Penang Tau Sar Piah. |
 Bake in a 325F preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown. |
Hi Suanne,
Watching your technique for creating what is essentially an individual serving of puff pastry is fascinating! Do you think the water dough and oil dough balls can be made in advance (day before), saran-wrapped and refrigerated? Soaking the mung bean, cooking the ingredients, and then cooling the filling may take all morning. I hope the dough balls can still be manipulated as well after overnight refrigeration.
Hi Lily, I’m not sure if the dough can be make ahead. I’m just afraid they will dry out and crack when roll. You can make the dough while the filing is cooling down.
Penang Tau Sar Pia is essentially a Nonya style pastry I believe. You can find it in Singapore as well but not here in Vancouver, at least I have not found it in any of the varied Chinatown bakeries. WOw, I admire that you tried successfully to bake these pastries because as you said, they are time consuming. It is always delicious! Finding such Nonya foods in vancouver is exceedingly hard unless you make it yourself as there are hardly any Malaysian/Singaporean bakeries around town. During the Dragon boat festival, I always try to find Nonya Rice dumplings but they cannot be found anywhere. But if you like to try Suanne(Very time consumin g by the way), here is a recipe I found
Hi Suanne,
Any special type of oil preferred? Normal cooking oil or butter?
Thanks
Hi meow33meow, the recipe calls for regular cooking oil (I usually use corn oil or canola oil for cooking).
I made them today. It is very time consuming, but really rewarding. I made the filling on a different day and warmed it up in microwave oven with a few drops of oil, just so that it is easier to roll into 9g balls.
While other recipes used lard or copher, I used rice bran oil through out this recipe.
The result? Very nice!