Steamed Pork Buns (Bao)

When I was in high school, I was fortunate to go on a three week long trip to China with my family. While my memory isn't perfect of the trip, one thing that stays fresh in my mind is the dim sum meal that we ate. Since then, my family has found a wonderful, authentic Chinese restaurant near my parents home (shout out to China Yuan in Tampa). They have a super delicious dim sum lunch that includes steamed roast pork buns. I'm not going to lie, I have not perfected the pork filling in mine, and so they are not the most delicious... yet.

The dough recipe for these I completely hijacked from the LA Times. Follow the link and make it yourself. I made mine in my Cuisinart food processor and it was super easy. I've never had good luck with yeast doughs, but this turned out perfectly! The texture once it was steamed was great!

I have tried making these previously with store bought bread dough on the recommendation of another web article that I had read. It did not work. There was not enough elasticity and the dough tore and broke and didn't rise correctly. So take a little bit of extra  time and make the dough.

I'm not going to bother giving you my filling because it turned out MUCH too salty. It isn't that they were bad, we totally at them, but I would say that it would be better to do an internet search for char siu bao and follow one of the many recipes you can find. I'm going to keep working on mine, and I will soon have one worth of a post.

Or fill with something else! LA Times has a really tasty looking curried chicken filling that looks delicious! This fall, watch out for some bao filled with Thanksgiving flavors.