Bao Down

As happy as I am with that picture, I have to admit that it is a tad misleading. Now, don't hit that "Next Blog" button just yet! Give me a chance to explain myself. Think of this picture above like the cover of a Lowrider Magazine. If you have never picked up the mag, they always have some hot chick standing next to a car on the cover. You pick it up and flip through it to try and see more of her, and at the most they have 1 or 2 more pictures of her! Well, that's what this picture is. Sadly enough, this is the only picture I have of this. It's basically a steak sandwich between steamed buns. That last part was the reason I did this to begin with. Steamed buns.

Cha Siu Bao, or steamed barbecue pork buns, is what I originally was shooting for. And when I say shooting for, I mean shooting blindly at a target about a mile away. I honestly didn't know what I was really getting into. I couldn't ever recall ever eating one previously. What I did know was that steamed buns are getting very popular these days. They are appearing on more restaurant menus and food trucks.

In my opinion, there is one chef who had a lot to do with the surge in popularity of the steamed bun. That would be Eddie Huang. He is the chef behind the restaurant BaoHaus in New York City. If you watch enough of the Cooking Channel, you are gonna see him on there. Talented chef, and a bit crazy too.

To switch gears a minute, I'm gonna give a little insight as to why I even tried this in the first place. I kept seeing it on TV and it looked good. I knew it involved a little baking, at least in the prep of the dough. And when it comes to baking, well, I can be a bit cocky. I thought "Shiiiiit! A dough?!?! I'll bang this shit out like some pussy! BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!"

Of course, whenever I start getting a little too big for my britches, I tend to fuck things up. And that's basically what happened through out the making of the bao. In the end, it tasted good, but I know I could of have done better.

From the time I started making the dough, I knew I was in for it. I forgot to add the vegetable oil at the right time, and the dough got really weird. It was as hard as a rock! I knew that couldn't be right, so I added more water and flour until it seemed like it was ok. While the dough was fermenting, I got the fillings ready.

On the left side, I have Portuguese sausage, carrots and ginger. I sauteed that in a soy sauce mix I threw together. On the right is braised pork shoulder, garlic and onion. I sauteed those three in a Korean barbecue sauce.

After the dough doubled in size, I punched it down and divided it into 16 pieces. The recipe said to go either 32 pieces or 16 pieces, depending on how much filling you were going to use. After I wrapped a few up, I quickly realized I should have gone to 32. There was simply too much bread and not enough filling.

When it comes time to fill them, you are supposed to roll them out, place the dough in your hand, put a couple spoonfuls of filling in the center and wrap them up all pretty-like with this little spiral design. For the life of me I couldn't get them to look like that! After the third monstrosity I made, I gave up on the spiral thing and just did a four-sided fold.

I didn't even have enough filling for all the dough. That wasn't really a bad thing in the end. The extra buns got used to make to pretty little steak sandwiches. So, that was a plus.

After the buns rested one more time, they were ready to be steamed. Since the fillings were already cooked, it didn't take too long to finish them. Here they are in the steamer.

Here's closer look after they cooled off a bit.

By the end, I was kinda bummed out by the way things were going that I didn't even take a picture of the bao with the sausage filling. But when I tasted the finished bao, I knew I couldn't be too far off the mark. The bun had a nice flavor and a soft, pillow like texture from steaming. The fillings were good, but to be honest, it really could have been anything at that point.

To get a second opinion, I took some to work with me the next day and had some friends try 'em out. To my surprise, they really seemed to like it. Out of the two, the pork shoulder was the clear winner. I even had a request to make more steamed buns! No joke!

Overall, I wouldn't call this a total failure. But I can't call it a win either. I think I'll put this one down as a "Work In Progress".

Yeah, that sounds about right.

J. Miller