Buns!

I have many weaknesses. Mostly for food. One of my greatest loves is the steamed bun, Chinese style. Generically speaking, we just call them 'bao', meaning buns, but they have lots of different names, including baozi, salapao in Thailand, or mantou if they are unfilled. The bread casing is always a little bit sweet and is especially good, in my opinion, combined with savoury fillings.

I've had some amazing baozi in restaurants and in Hong Kong. They remind me of eating breakfast with my paternal grandmother and family when I was seven years old, in a Tai Po restaurant that she still visits to this day to meet her friends and gossip. They remind me of the best home breakfast surprises (I had a pretty weird breakfast upbringing, sometimes even involving beefburgers or pie! Pizza featured once at breakfast too!). My favourites are filled with char siu (roast pork), meat and vegetables, or sweet things like lotus seed paste or yellow custard.

On Saturday, armed with a package of 'Tippy salapao mix' (buy it online here) from the Chinese supermarket, I attemped my first home-made baozi. OK, so I haven't got a clue how to make the bread casing - it involves wheat flour, raising agents of various types, sugar and some kind of magic. I think some other mixes include yeast, but this one did not. One day maybe I'll try making my own!

I filled them with chicken breast minced in a food processor, finely chopped spring onion, Chinese leaf, garlic, ginger, salt, soy sauce, sesame oil, coriander a tiny pinch of Chinese five spice and a dash of white pepper. The quantities, as with most of my 'made-up' cooking, were arbitrary. Basically, a mix of two chicken breasts, three leaves of Chinese leaf, two spring onions, three cloves of garlic, a 5mm slice of ginger, chopped finely, a small bunch of fresh coriander and the other ingredients to taste, was more than enough to generously fill the twelve buns that one package of flour mix can make.

If I were to make them again I would add some pre-soaked dried shiitake mushrooms or some chopped water chestnuts to the mix. You could also try making them with pork, adding chinese chives, or try a vegetarian version.


They were surprisingly easy to make - this flour mix only takes a few minutes to make up. Filling them without leaks is harder, but I think we were trying to cram too much into each bun! All the instructions are on the packet and they take only 15 minutes to steam, even with raw meat inside.

These are pictures of the ones we made and I was jolly proud of them for a first attempt. True fluffiness will probably always elude me, but they were tasty nonetheless.

EDIT: I just found a recipe for baozi dough here. I will try it some time, when I have a few hours to spare!