Bao Zi, Fluffy Steamed Pork Buns (发面包子)

Today, we wanted to show you how to make the ever popular baozi, stuffed steamed buns. Now baozi are really more of a category of buns than a dish per se. There's a lot of different variants, so today we'll be showing you the fluffy style that you'd usually find on the street in China. These are called famian baozi, and they have their characteristic fully risen dough. For the filling, we'll show you how to make a simple bog standard pork filling, but there's a million different varieties so feel free to stuff these guys with whatever you're feeling. So right, to get started with your baozi, you'll need… flour. This was 250 grams of all purpose flour, 11% protein to be precise. Now in a separate cup with 125 grams of water, add in 5 grams of sugar and 2 grams of active dry yeast. Stir and thoroughly dissolve those into the water, then start to add that mixture bit by bit, aiming for the dry parts. Now depending on the age of your flour, it might end up needing a touch more water, just make sure that you're looking at something about this consistency in the end. But once you're there, knead the dough for eight minutes. These sorts of baozi need a strong gluten network for them to maintain their shape… if you find your baozi are overly flat, you're not kneading them long enough. Then transfer over to a silpat, and shape by first taking the craggly side of the dough, pinching it closed, and forming it into a ball just like you were shaping bread. Now toss that in a bowl, cover, and set it aside for 90 minutes till it doubles in size. And as that's rising, we can make our filling. This was 180 grams of pork butt, roughly 90% lean and 10% fat. First slice that into a dice, then just go at it and start chopping. If you want something fattier than 10%, it could be a nice idea to separately dice the fat so it won't melt while steaming, or alternatively add a vegetable filler in to absorb the grease. After about three minutes of chopping, you should be looking at something about this consistency… just please don't use a supermarket mince if you can help it, mincing the meat by hand produces a vastly superior texture. Now as I said, there's a million different varieties to pork baozi fillings, but the critical constant to all of them is… water. This was 60 grams of hot, boiled water, and to that we'll toss in a half an inch of crushed ginger, three one inch sections of leek, two star anise, half a black cardamom pod, just skip this if you can't find it, a teaspoon of fennel seed, and a teaspoon of Sichuan peppercorns. Now set that aside for at least 30 minutes to let that all come down to room temperature. Back to the pork mince now, season it with a quarter teaspoon of salt, a quarter teaspoon of sugar, half teaspoon of cornstarch, an eighth teaspoon white pepper powder, a half a tablespoon light soy sauce, and a half a teaspoon liaojiu Then strain your now cooled spice water, and add that in tablespoon by tablespoon, stirring in one direction only. Continue to go at that for about five minutes. Stirring helps develop the myosin in the pork in order to get it to a stickier, more uniform hole. Then add in a teaspoon of toasted sesame oil, mix it in, and the pork filling is good to go. So now that our dough's done rising, sprinkle over a bit of flour and punch out the air. Flour your work surface – your dough should be a bit sticky at this point, so dust the top of that as well. Press down, then roll it into a large sheet – for reference here, our cutting board is 30 centimeters by 40. Then starting from the back, tightly roll it up and portion into eight even pieces, 47.5 grams each to be precise. So now take each piece, press it down to get a flat square, then take the corner, fold it to the center, do the same thing with the next corner, continuing around the dough. Then put it between your thumb and index finger and press that closed, pinching up any excess. Then, with a similar motion, pinch at the very top to get a nice round ball, and… twist. Now roll it around a bit, shape just like we did before, and work through all your dough. Then grab a ball, sprinkle it with a bit more flour, and press it flat. Then with a rolling pin, roll by first lightly moving in, then press and roll back out with force. Twist, and move around the baozi. This motion helps ensure that the very center of the baozi's thicker than the sides – a thick center's needed to hold your filling without breaking, the thin sides so that you can actually pleat the thing. And once those are all rolled out, we can fill them. So now add 30 grams of your pork filling, then make a pinch for your first pleat, hold the pleat with your thumb, and make the next pleat, lightly pushing the pork down and in. Continue around the baozi, periodically pressing in that filling… the very best baozi have 18 pleats, you don't need exactly that many, but try your best to get close. Then at the very end, pinch and twist that excess up over towards the top of the baozi, pinching it together at the center. Pat it to shape it into a bit of a more even ball, and… you've got yourself a baozi. Work through your baozi, placing them in a steamer over some slices of parchment paper, as you go. Then, over a pot of 38 centigrade water, nestle in your steaming rack of baozi. Give those a nice spritz with water, and proof for 30 minutes. After that time, our baozi are looking significantly larger. If you don't mind, we'll finish filming this in our terribly lit kitchen… first put it all over max flame to get the water up to a boil, then once you see some steam coming out of your steamer, turn the flame to medium, and steam for 15 minutes. And 15 minutes later, the baozi are done. Soft, fluffy baozi, just like you'd get on the street for breakfast. So as Chris said, these are fa mian baozi, the fully riced ones. There are also semi-riced ones, ban fa mian baozi. You'll see them in Tianjin, and so are the ever popular Shengjianbao. There are also the ones that are completely not riced, for example the famous Xiaolongbao. And in the future, we'll try to make videos and show you how to make those different kinds of baozi. So check out the Reddit link in the description box for a detailed recipe. A big thank you for everyone that's supporting us on Patreon, and of course, subscribe for more Chinese cooking videos.