Friday, May 2, 2008

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)

22 comments:

  1. I'm craving these! :) They look delicious..
    When I was young my parents would take us on a two hour drive for "Dim Sum". I use to order a version like this..I think. It was called "chow su bau" . I don't think I spelled that right.
    But anyway..I haved loved them eversince..but can't find them here where I live..I have wanted to make them but didn't know how to look for them. Are these pretty much the same thing? Because this looks awesome!! The filling recipe looks as if it would taste like the version I had as a young girl.
    Beautiful pictures!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, those look so cool! What does the steamed dough taste like? Is it soft and sogggy or is it chewy? or something else? Looks really cool!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi, Laurie
    I'm glad that you like this recipe and I hope you give it a try.I think the one that you talk about is the barbecue pork steamed bun, but this one is delicious too.

    Hi, Colette
    The steamed bun is soft and lightly sweet, I really want you to try and I know that this recipe is easy for you (ps. I saw you bake breads many times before)

    ReplyDelete
  4. This looks lovely!!You really inspired me to bake! I tried making buns before, but I didn't mix in the baking powder properly, which resulted in brown specs all over the dough. It still tasted good nevertheless! I shall give it another go when I'm free! Thanks for posting up the recipe!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Pook, your pao is georgous. UI like the folds on top!

    Usually my steamed pao will come out with wrinkled "skin"... do you know how to prevent this from happening?

    Thanks
    cookie

    ReplyDelete
  6. Just a little info...

    In the Philippines, it's called SioPao. Yum :]

    ReplyDelete
  7. First-time pao makerFebruary 3, 2010 at 8:45 PM

    Hi, I am going to try your recipe for this steamed buns. I just have some questions :
    1. Why make the sponge separately? I have looked into other recipes and this is the first time I saw that I have to make two 'dough' : the sponge, and then the dough itself. So, any reason?

    2. When you combine the sponge and the dough, do you combine AFTER the sponge has rested and doubled in size, or before?

    Thanks for your help,
    - First-time pao maker

    ReplyDelete
  8. The 2 step method is for the flavor and the softness of the dough.
    When combine the sponge and the dough,combine sponge and the dough after the sponge is double in size.
    Pook

    ReplyDelete
  9. I love steamed buns, but I'm not a big fan of the filled ones. Can I use your dough recipe to make folded buns (the kind that accompanies Peking Duck) or the unfilled rolled buns that look like dinner rolls? I usually get them frozen from Asian grocery stores. Any tips on how to shape and cook them? Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Yes, M
    You can use this recipe to make the unfilled steam buns.
    Just follow the recipe but omit the filling.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hi Pook,

    Oh my I have just made a small patch using your recipe and they were really good. I didn't have pastry flour so I did what you recommended (half all purpose and half cake flour). Much better than store bought i have to admit hihi. Thanks for sharing the recipe I will definitely make more in the future.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Will the buns taste as good and fresh if we freeze them?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Yes, you can freeze them and reheat by steaming before serving.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hello Khun Pook,
    Wow those buns look soft and fluffy and mouth-watering delicious, no doubt!! They are my whole-time fave!! I havent tried ur recipe yet but I will. Just one question, is fresh yeast possible for this recipe, if yes, how much am I looking? Thanks in advance.

    Khing

    ReplyDelete
  15. You will need about 15g of fresh yeast ka ^^.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I always made this...my lil girl love steam pork bun. But my recipe didn't use the sponge method. I'll try your recipe and let you know how it turns out. Oh...btw instead of using pastry flour can I used regular all purpose flour or cake flour? Or combination both? Pastry flour is a low protein flour rite?

    ReplyDelete
  17. I think a combination of both will be better, as the pastry flour has low protein but not as low as cake flour.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Hi Pook, I just tried your recipe, the pau dough was really good! Thank you for posting it!!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Hi, can i chk...will the bao still be soft if left outside for few hrs? Cos the recipe i tried..the bao skin will be slightly harden with a thin shiny coat.
    Thks!

    ReplyDelete
  20. The outside of the bao will harden because of the dryness if you don't want it to harden, you need to cover it tightly. ^^

    ReplyDelete
  21. ha, I just made it today and the result was amazing.I didn't have the chestnuts so I used cabbage instead.

    One thing is that I only have bread and cake flour so I took a risk and combine these too ;__; but guess what ? The bun was really soft and slightly sweet.Goes perfectly with the well seasoned filling.Thanks for sharing the recipe :) ( Although I really need to work on the shape lol )

    ReplyDelete
  22. Thanks for sharing! Made this last week and the bun is soft n fluffy. I used wheat flour + all purpose flour. The filling is yum.

    ReplyDelete

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