I have not had pork in ages. Ever since I moved to Indonesia, predominantly muslims, buying, cooking and eating pork are not as easy. We have been in lockdown for about 8 weeks now and I ordered all my food and groceries online. The site that is my regular, they don’t sell pork, so every time I need to cook with pork, I substituted with chicken breast. They are not the same but did the job.
I got gifted a roll of cha siu pork from Kitchen Maru, and I decided to go against mainstream and refused to cook it with ramen. So I got an idea to make burger baos like I often had in NY. I never made buns before, but I ate so many of them in the past so I experimented to get the right ingredients and fluff. I did ended up eating half airy buns half ‘not so airy’ buns during the experimental experience, but I did all that so you don’t have to!
Feel free to copy or print this recipe, but be sure to try it. This recipe makes 10 small baos, so double or triple it yourself to cater to your need.
Ingredients:
1 cup of all purpose flour
1/2 tsp instant yeast
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sugar
a pinch of salt
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp milk room temp
a dash of vegetable oil plus more for brushing
Instructions:
- In a medium bowl, add all the dry ingredients.
- Make a well in the flour/dry mix then add milk and vegetable oil.
- Combine the dry and wet ingredients until cohesive then knead the dough by hands for 5-7 minutes until soft and smooth.
- Return the dough to the mixing bowl, cover and rest in a warm place for 90 minutes or until doubled in size.
- Once the dough has doubled in size, transfer the dough to a work surface and dust with flour. ‘Punch down’ the dough by kneading it for about a minute.
- Use a rolling pin to roll the dough out to 1cm thick. Then use an 8cm diameter pastry cutter (or a cup of the same diameter) to cut out rounds. Remove the excess dough.
- Brush the rounds lightly with vegetable oil. Then, fold rounds in half and flatten slightly with the rolling pin. Place folded rounds onto a steamer rack that has a line of baking paper.
- Repeat with remaining dough. Cover the folded rounds and set aside to prove for 30 minutes.
- While the dough is proofing for the second time, fill the base of the steamer with water and heat it to boil.
- Place the steamer rack on top of the boiling water and turn the heat down to medium low and steam for about 10 minutes.
- After 10 mins, turn off the heat and allow the buns to rest for 5 minutes (don’t lift the lid up!). After 5 minutes, remove the buns onto a cooling rack and use the same steamer to steam the rest of the buns.
- Enjoy them as is or with fillings. I used cha siu pork with pickled carrots and cucumbers.