buns. ha-ha, buns.
i love buns.
who doesn’t? the chinese kind i mean. all steamy and glossy on the outside , soft and pillowy sticky white on the inside witha little surprise package of a not-always-sure-about-what-exactly-that-is inside. sometimes sweet red bean, and othertimes mushrooms or chicken in that slippery cornstarch sauce. but the king of them all must be the amazingly red char sieuw pork. i’ve had the frozen variety countless times and, unlike most frozen aproximations, usually with a good degree of success, and whenever i have the chance i’ll order them in a restaurant. there’s just something special about the way the strange bread-but-not-bread combines texturally with the surprise inside and the steamy subtle flavour from the bamboo steamer itself. i had always assumed that, like a lot of baking and pastry construction, the making of these little buns would be well beyond the reach of a gorgeous, but admittedly less than scientific cook such as myself.
thankfully, how wrong i was. it’s easy, kids, and one of the more satisfying first-tries i’ve completed . i guess you could fill them with anything you like, and i’ve tried two different approaches, both of which worked really well. the first one is non-traditional and to use the buns like a burger bun: you make a plain bun with no filling, then slice it like a breadroll and fill it up with all kinds of nice stuff like a kind of fusion burger. i did it with slow bbq’ed asian style pork belly with scallions and oyster sauce. it was amazing. and amazingly easy. it was so amazing that i was overwhelmed and neglected to take any photographs to serve as evidence. i think the secret was the pork belly. i just covered it with a little sesame oild, some garlic and some five-spice powder then put it in a not-to-hot indirect charcoal bbq (which is fast becoming my favourite thing ever) for about three hours putting a splash of chinese rice wine at about the hour-forty mark. then sliced it up, stired in some oyster sauce and scallions, dropped on a few more sesame seeds and into sliced buns.
the second approach was an attmpt at the more traditional chinese bun. basically the same dough, but with the filling locked up inside before it gets steamed. i chose mushrooms in that slippery cornstarch-y sauce mostly because i didn’t have time to cook a four hour pork belly. for the mushrooms i just cooked a mix of different guys in a little oil with some garlic and scallions and a star anise, as well as a rice wine and a little black vinegar. i made a paste of cornstarch and a really small amount of water and then just added more cornstarch, then more water untill i got the shiny slippery radness to go nicely with the mushrooms.
making the buns was exactly the same as the first time, but instead of just making balls (ha-ha, balls) i made flat discs and spooned some of the shrooms onto each one, then folded them all together into mushroom filled balls (ha-ha, filled balls).
into the steamer then into my mouth.
here’s the basic buns recipe:
- 1 cake fresh yeast
- 1 cup lukewarm water
- 4 1/2 cups flour
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup boiling water
- 2 tablespoons sesame seed oil
Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water. Add 1 cup of flour. Mix thoroughly. Cover with cloth. Let rise 1 hour, until bubbles appear.
Dissolve sugar and vegetable oil in 1/2 cup boiling water. Stir well. Cool until lukewarm. Pour into yeast mixture. Add 3 1/2 cups flour.
Knead dough on lightly floured board until smooth. Put into extra large, greased bowl in a warm place. Cover with damp cloth. Let rise until double in bulk, about 2 hours.
Divide into 2 portions. Remove first portion and knead 2 minutes. Repeat with second. Roll each into roll 12 inches long and 2 inches wide. Cut into 12 pieces (24 total).
Flatten each piece with palm of hand. Roll with rolling pin into 3 inch circles.
Brush with sesame seed oil. Indent middle of circle with chopstick. Fold circle in half so that it becomes a half moon. Crimp edges tightly with fork.
Place each roll on separate square piece of paper on steamer tray. Cover tray with towel. Let buns rise to double in bulk, about 30 minutes. Remove towel.
Steam over boiling water for 10 minutes.
