Chinese Steamed BBQ Pork Bun – Recipe

What’s soft, pillowy, delicious and you can probably eat five of these for breakfast? No, not my nephew, char siu baos! A dim sum staple, these are hot and steamy buns filled with savoury barbecue pork filling. I remember my mom and grandmothers making by the hundreds for my sisters and I when we were young – Ok, maybe not hundreds, but by the “fifties”?. They would often spend an entire afternoon on a bao making blitz cooking up filling and filling up discs of rolled out dough then freezing them. These lasted us for weeks and were often the snack of choice that greeted us after school. Here’s an adapted version of our family recipe.

I say “adapted because” it was a big difficult to get exact measurements that corresponded to “a handful of flour” or “a bowl of warm water”. So after playing with the recipe for a while, I finally fell on the perfect bao dough recipe and it’s a lot simpler than you can imagine.

Ingredients:
Dough
1 cup warm water
1 packet of yeast (8g)
2 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 teaspoon sugar
3 cups all purpose flour

Filling
3 cups cooked char siu (cubed or shredded)
2 teaspoon grated ginger
1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon shaoxing wine
1/2 teaspoon five spice powder
1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoon sesame oil
3 cloves garlic (minced)
2 tablespoon water + 1 tablespoon corn starch – mixed

Waxed paper cut into 2.5-inch squares (16 pieces)

Note: The char siu can be store bought or made – my recipe here.

Directions:
In a large bowl, combine, water, salt, oil, yeast and sugar. Stir until the yeast and sugar is dissolved and add in flour. Kneed until the dough comes together (about 5-6 minutes), cover with a towel and set aside in a warm oven for 30 mins. After 30 mins, punch the dough down, kneed for 2 more minutes and let it rise again until it doubles in size.

While the dough is rising, in a skillet, stir fry the filling ingredients for 5 minutes, leaving the cornstarch slurry for the last minute of cooking.

After 60 mins, roll the dough out and divide into 16 equal pieces. I roll it out into two ropes and cut them into marshmallow shapes.

Roll the dough out leaving it thicker in the centre.

Spoon the filling into the dough and pleat the dough closed and place on a waxed paper square with the sealed side up.

Cover your baos with a towel for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, get your steamer going to a rolling boil. Steam your buns for 15 minutes, remove and let cool on a rack.

This recipe is deceivingly simple; dough + filling + steam = yum yum buns. The filling is a perfect mix of sweet and savoury that compliments the fluffy bun perfectly.

I’ve tweaked the recipe for the past little while and have gotten the measurements and proportions perfect. This dough works great for any kind of filling, both savoury and sweet. If you made the dough correctly, it won’t be sticky and extra flour shouldn’t be necessary. Also, if you are using a raw filling, up the cooking time to 25 minutes.

Having trouble finding a particular ingredient? Check out my Asian grocery store round up to find a market near you!