Steamed buns for president
Make sure you make about a billion of these because they are insanely delicious. It takes time to make the buns therefore I always make a big batch and keep them in the freezer so whenever I fancy baos (literally everyday) I can steam a couple of breads to defrost them and dig into them. There are endless fillings such as pork belly, fried chicken or fish, mushrooms or tofu. I think the acidity is important so I load mine with pickles and a squeeze of lime. Crowd pleaser to say the least!
Ingredients
Makes 16
530 g flour plus a little more for dusting
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
12 g fast action dried yeast
50 ml milk
200 g water
1 tbsp neutral oil
2 tsp rice or white wine vinegar
1.5 tsp baking powder
Sesame oil for brushing
Method
Mix flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl.
Put the yeast and an extra pinch of sugar in a mixing bowl and add tbsp of warm water to dissolve the yeast. Let sit and add milk, oil, vinegar and the water. Then add the flour mixture and mix on low (if using a stand mixer) into a dough. If the dough seem to dry add a little more water.
Knead the dough by hand for min 10 minutes or let a machine do the work for you. Rest and let rise for about two hours, the dough needs to double in size.
After two hours tip the dough onto a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes. Then roll a sausage and cut into 16 even balls.
Using the palm of your hand roll every ball into a round piece. Leve them for 10 minutes. Meanwhile cut 16 square shaped pieces of baking parchment about half the size of the oval.
Roll out each ball to an oval shaped flatbread with a rolling pin, it should be 4-5mm thick. Brush the dough ovals with a very thin layer of sesame oil and fold over.
Put each bun on top of a piece of baking parchment and cover with a tea towel. The buns need to double in size again which takes about 1.5 hours.
In batches - steam each bun for 6-8 minutes using a steaming basket.
I have filled these ones with brased Chinese pork belly, quick pickled cucumbers, hoisin sauce, coriander and peanuts. The photo below is an example when these bad boys become a terrific freezer friend.
