There is nothing like the pillow softness of a big juicy pork bun. After your teeth have sunk through the tender dough, they reach the slightly more toothsome meaty filling, that is tender, juicy and very tasty.

The anticipation involved in waiting for your pork buns, the ones that you made for yourself is huge. You know that once they are done, you need/must get them out of the pot, and into your mouth as soon as possible. So that the buns can be as fresh and as hot as possible in order to get the maximum enjoyment out of them.

They are really quite easy to make. I recommend going with your flavour whim, “to bbq pork, or not to bbq pork that is the question ” lol. These dumplings were of the “not to bbq pork” variety and instead contained some pickled mustard greens. The filling is better if it all gets a nice while to marinate together, so ensure you make the filling before you start on the dough.

This is how the meat looked prior to being stuffed into the dough. Have you noticed how large they are? I know it is quite hard with no frame of reference, so you will just have to trust me.

One of the advantages of making these yourself beside the flavour, which is so much better, is that you can have little balls of meat or huge big ones which are hardly contained by the dough, this was the angle I chose.

When you see the buns all cooked and ready in your pot, I almost defy you to not drool.

The filling:

For huge meatballs 500gms of meat, for small balls about 250gms, a mix of pork, chicken or what ever you like just make sure that at least half of the meat is on the fattier side, just for the flavour.

To this I added:
garlic chives, garlic, ginger, pickled mustard greens, coriander stems, lots of pepper, a little corn starch, toasted sesame oil and some hoisin sauce. I then mixed it together and put it well covered in the fridge to marinate.

For the dough, I used:

4 cups of self raising flour
1/2 up of sugar dissolved into 1 cup of milk
and 1 tbsp of oil

The sugar milk needs to be mixed into the flour and then needed for along time (around 15 - 20 mins) then add the tbsp of oil and need until it is as smooth and soft as a baby’s bottom (about 10 mins) then put the dough aside and leave it to rest for 1/2 hr.

Then divide the dough into 12 portions and add 1/12th of your meat mix (if you make it into balls first it is much easier) then seal them up.

You need a large pot of boiling water (enough to last 20 mins) then just before you put your dumplings in add some vinegar. Steam for 10 mins and then remove the lid and remove any built up moisture on the lid, put the lid back on and steam for 10 more minutes.

Then get ready to eat, these are much more fun if you have a huge group of starving people ready to descend on them as soon as they emerge from the steamer.

They are supposed to freeze well after being steamed but I never have any left over!

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 at 10:42 am and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.