Chinese Steamed Buns with Minced Pork

Not too easy but not hard to make if you know how to knead bread, this is a simple meal by itself, and delicious too. This one of my favorite from childhood time, we usually have these buns on festival or family gathering, talking, eating and drinking tea, what a lovely day (even I finished consuming too many buns, I still love it). This is quite a huge recipe for a small family so I include the half recipe so you can make and enjoy them without having too much left because this bun is more delicious when freshly made. And when you have a lot of creativity, you can use other kind of filling, like custard, shrimp, sweet bean paste and etc. So, don’t be timid, give it a try and you will love to have a little ethic bun at home (and you make it by yourself too).

Note: It will be good if you can find pastry flour because the pastry flour will give the right among of gluten in this recipe but you can use half cake flour and half all purpose flour instead of the pastry flour.

Chinese Steamed Buns with Minced Pork

Makes about 35-37 for large recipe or 17-19 for small recipe

Sponge
Large	Small
375 g	190 g	Pastry flour
10 g / 1tbsp	5 g / ½ tbsp	Instant yeast
10 g / 1tbsp	5 g / ½ tbsp	Sugar
225 g / 1cup	113 g / ½ cup	Water

Sift the flour, and combine flour and yeast.

Dissolve the sugar in the water and pour into flour mixture, mix until soft and smooth (picture 1).

Let the sponge rise for 60 minutes, the sponge will be almost double in volume (picture 2).

It will look like a sponge (picture 3).

While waiting for the sponge to be ready, make the minced pork filling.

Minced pork filling
Large	Small
300 g	150 g	Minced pork
225 g	115 g	whole water chestnuts, finely diced
20 g	10 g	Sugar
½ tsp	¼ tsp	Salt
2 tbsp	1 tbsp	Soy sauce
2 tbsp	1 tbsp	Oyster sauce
1 tbsp	½ tbsp	Sesame oil
2 tsp	1 tsp	Grounded pepper
1 tsp	½ tsp	Corn starch
2	1	Spring onions (chopped)
2	1	Dried shitake (soaked and chopped into small pieces)

Put the minced pork in a bowl of a mixer fitted with paddle and beat until sticky, put all the ingredients except shitake and spring onion and beat to combine.

Mix the shitake and spring onion into the pork mixture, beat to combine.

Cut into portion (it will be easier to put the filling in a pan and cut into portion).

Cover with the plastic wrap and put in the fridge until use.

Dough
Large	Small
150 g	75 g	Pastry flour
5 g / 2 tsp	2.5 g/ 1 tsp	Baking powder
40 g	20 g	Water
100 g	50 g	Sugar
4 g / 1 tsp	2 g / ½ tsp	Salt
50 g	25 g	Vegetable oil
		Sponge

Sift together flour and baking powder into a bowl and mix in the sugar and salt; make a well in the center.

Pour the water into the center and place the sponge on top and mix to combine.

Pour the vegetable oil on top and knead to combine.

Take the dough out of the bowl and knead until smooth and elastic.

Then cut into pieces (you can weight and cut into pieces or cut into 30g/ piece: about 35-37 for large recipe and 17-19 for small recipe). Roll the dough into a ball.

Flatten each ball with the palm of your hand into a 3" diameter circle. Place a filling mixture in center of each dough round, and gather up edges to enclose filling, twisting edges together and pressing to seal and place over paper baking cup. Repeat with remaining dough and filling, covering buns with plastic wrap.

Let the buns rise until double in volume, about 30 minutes.

Cook in a steamer for about 12 minutes taking care to leave each bun enough space to expand. Do not open the steamer while the buns are cooking. Serve warm.

Adaptation from this web forum (in Thai language)