Baozi - Chinese Steam Buns

My brother lives in Shanghai. Last May I went to visit him and ate for 3 weeks straight. Shanghai is an extraordinary city. You can wander the streets endlessly, never boring, and forever passing another street stall or small restaurant selling some incredible and slightly different version of Chinese breakfast fare: dumplings (jiaozi), shanghai soup dumplings (xia long bao) and steam buns (baozi). My Shanghai routine started each morning with a gentle nudge from jetlag at around 5:30, after which it was off to explore and eat. I mapped out my daily routes based on where I hadn’t managed to eat the day before, and systematically, and with probably the most self-control I’ve ever exercised in my life (but only so that I could maximize on variety), ate my way through the neighbourhoods until my brother finished work and we went for dinner. I’ve heard China horror stories of inedible meals, unidentifiable meats and unpalatable cuts, but this was not my experience at all. I could live in Shanghai for more than just the food but believe me you could make a case on the food alone. While it’s true my Mandarin was essentially non-existent AT THE TIME (now it’s just almost non-existent - there’s a difference), I quickly learned, during those days of wander, that waving an index finger at pictures of food or at other people’s plates is universal for “I want that” and was able to procure myself some delicious meals.

I’ve always been a big fan of baozi (which were created by Zhuge Liang, a 3rd century AD scholar and military strategist, says Wikipedia). As a youngun, my mum used to take me to the sadly defunct Baldwin Street bun shop where I developed my appreciation and, nowadays, stopping into the Ding Dong Pastry Shop or Chinese Traditional Bun (my favourite fancy restaurant) are regular parts of my not-so-routine-like routine. In high school, I was also obsessed with Wok with Yan and Yan can Cook – vestiges of a time when cooking shows were not quite as cool as they are today and had live studio audiences that got to eat the food. You heard me. Cooking shows are now cool. In truth, I never actually saw Yan make baozi, but his shows were on for years so I think it’s fair to assume he may have at some point.

I’d never made steam buns before today but I’d spent many hours thinking about them. And since I’ve always believed in really testing boundaries, despite their rightful place beside the cereal box and the orange juice, baozi were on the dinner menu tonight.

Making baozi was not complicated but because the dough needed to rise, the end result was not immediate. The starter of yeast, sugar, flour, and warm water sat for a half-hour and was then mixed with more flour and water, some salt, sugar and a little bit of veggie oil. I hardly kneaded the dough, although I was supposed to, and let it sit in a greased bowl for 3 hours. While the dough was rising, I cooked the ground meat (chicken or pork … I’m not telling you which to use or which one I did) and mixed it with green onions, ginger, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, veggie oil, sugar, water and pepper. When the dough was ready, I sprinkled with baking powder and kneaded for about 20 seconds (because I am impatient and not because that was what the recipe told me to do) and then divided it into 24 balls. I rolled the balls out and filled each one with the filling. I then place each bun on a square of wax paper (just like in Shanghai!) and proceeded to steam, ignoring entirely another “suggested” half hour of rising.

I steamed the buns using a pasta cauldron that came with its very own strainer. Because I didn’t feel like steaming the buns in endless batches, I also tried placing an oven rack over a pot, placing the buns on the rack, and placing the ill-fitting lid on top of the rack. The cauldron-strainer-get-up worked, the oven-rack didn’t. I also wound up boiling off all the water and charbroiling the bottom of my cauldron. I wish I could say I had never done that before.

The buns were unbelievably good. The dough was soft, light and fluffy and the filling was both tangy and sweet thanks to the complement of ginger, vinegar, soy and sugar. There they are in that picture over there. I read on someone’s blog on the internet (a refreshing change from the questionably credible Wikipedia) that Mao’s favourite food was chicken soup with garlic sprouts and pork. One of Deng Xiaoping’s favourites was Double Taste Fiery Pot. Now that does not mean that they did not like baozi, it just means they liked those other things more.