These are not hard to make, but you really need to pay attention to the ingredients if you want them to taste like the kind you get at a Chinese bakery or dim sum house. And if you don’t have a bamboo steamer, this recipe is reason enough to get one.
Ingredients
Yeast Dough:
- 1 1/2 teaspoons instant dry yeast
- 3/4 cup lukewarm water
- 2 tablespoons canola oil
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 3 cups flour
Filling:
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons oyster sauce
- 1 tablespoon water
- 2 teaspoons canola oil
- salt and ground white pepper to taste
- 2 scallions, chopped white and green parts
- 1/2 pound char siu, diced
- 1 tablespoon Shaoxing rice wine
- 1 1/2 tablespoon cornstarch dissolved in 2 tablespoons water
Instructions
- Combine sugar, salt, white, pepper, soy sauce, oyster sauce and water in a small bowl and set aside.
- Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the scallions and cook, stirring constantly, for about a minute. Add the char siu and stir well. Add the soy sauce and oyster sauce mixture and cook, stirring frequently, for about 2 minutes, until the pork is heated through.
- Add the Shaoxing rice wine to the dissolved cornstarch. Add the wine and cornstarch mixture to the warm pork and cook, stirring constantly, for another minute until the mixture has come together into a mass that you can mound. Transfer to a bowl and set aside to cool at room temperature before using.
- Put the yeast in a small bowl, add the water and set aside for 1 minute to soften. Whisk in the oil to blend and dissolve the yeast. Set aside.
- Combine sugar, baking powder and flour in a large bowl. Make a well in the center and pour in the yeast mixture. Slowly stir with a wooden spoon, moving from the center toward the rim, to work in all the flour. Keep stirring as a ragged but soft dough forms. Then use your fingers to gather and pat the dough together into a ball. Transfer to a clean work surface and knead for about 5 minutes until the dough is smooth and slightly elastic.
- Place the dough in a large bowl that has been lightly oiled. Cover with plastic wrap and put it in a warm, draft-free place to rise for 45 minutes until the dough has nearly doubled.
- Lightly dust a clean work surface with flour. Cut the dough in half and roll into a foot-long log. Cut the log into eight pieces.
- Roll each piece into a ball and flatten gently into a small disc. Using a small rolling pin roll the edges and only the edges. There should be a small bulge at the center of the dough.
- Place a tablespoon of the char siu filling in the center of the dough. Wrap the filling by pressing and pulling the edges of the dough. Gather the edges and twist the top to fully cover the filling.
- Place each bun on a square of wax paper before steaming. Steam the buns in a bamboo steamer for 15 minutes, being careful to leave 1-2 inches between each.
This is one of those times when you just can’t fake it on the meat. You have to start with char siu, or it can’t really be Char Siu Bao. Right? Your local Asian market should be able to sell you a nice piece of char siu for this. Or you can make it yourself on another day and save some for making some Bao. I made it a few months ago as part of a Sunday Dinner and it was a big hit. Here’s the recipe I used for it.
Once you have the char siu ready to use, here’s a good video to show how you do the magic.
For my family, this is uber comfort food. My father, George Chock (oldest son of Chock Chin who survived to adulthood), taught us to love bao. On Saturdays he would go to an Asian bakery and come home with a large pink cardboard box tied up with baker’s twine, filled with bao and assorted other delicacies. This tastes like home.
