Today is October 4, which is the 15th day of the 8th lunar month. It marks the Mid-Autumn festival when families gather together to celebrate good harvests and give thanks. I like to think of it as the Asian version of Thanksgiving. In the West, the most iconic food of this holiday is the mooncake, which has become viewed as somewhat of an exotic sweet. The most popular type is the cake with a golden brown crust with a sweet filling of red bean or lotus paste, but there are many different kinds of mooncakes, too. This weekend my mom made 鲜肉月饼 (xiān ròu yuè bǐng). It roughly translates to “fresh meat mooncake.” People in Northern China eat this type more often. Although more bun-like and savory than the popular pastry-like mooncake, it is still a mooncake nonetheless. With just a few simple ingredients, you can easily make it too!

Ingredients

1 pound ground fatty beef

Chopped scallion (to taste)

Soy sauce (to taste)

1 roll of puff pastry

Steps

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Set out puff pastry roll to defreeze. In a large bowl, combine beef, scallion, and soy sauce. Marinate for one hour. After the meat is finished marinating, prepare a baking tray lined with tin foil. Place a ping-pong sized ball of meat in one puff pastry square. Pinch the sides of the square tightly together. You can use water to serve as glue to make this step easier. Repeat until all puff pastry squares and meat has run out.

You may need to use more than one puff pastry roll, because we ended up with a lot of leftover meat!

Brush the mooncakes with egg wash and put them in the oven for about 15 minutes or until golden brown. Then devour them!

These are definitely not your average mooncakes–they’re flaky from the puff pastry, salty, and flavor-packed from the fatty beef. I hope you try out the recipe!

Katie