Gua bao

Ingredients

• Flour500 g
• Warm milk250 ml
• Dry yeast7 g
• Sugar50 g
• Pork belly900 g
• Soy sauce100 ml
• Rock sugar40 g
• Shaoxing wine80 ml
• Star anise2
• Pickled mustard greens200 g
• Roasted peanuts100 g
• Coriander40 g
• Vegetable oil40 ml
• Saltto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Dissolve the yeast with a spoon of sugar in the warm milk and leave it ten minutes.

   12 min

2. 2

   Knead a dough from the flour, yeast mixture, remaining sugar, oil and salt, working it fifteen minutes.

   18 min

3. 3

   Blanch the belly two minutes, rinse it and braise it in the soy, wine, sugar and star anise for ninety minutes.

   95 min

4. 4

   Let the dough rise an hour, roll it into ovals and fold each in half with a strip of parchment inside.

   75 min

5. 5

   Prove the buns thirty minutes and steam them for twelve.

   45 min

6. 6

   Pound the peanuts with two spoons of sugar into a coarse crumb.

   8 min

7. 7

   Open a bun and lay in a slice of belly, the pickled greens, the peanut crumb and coriander.

   10 min

About the dish

The bun is folded in half before proving and lined with paper. Without the lining the halves fuse in the steamer and cannot be opened afterwards.

Peanuts are pounded with sugar and scattered over the meat. That sweet crumb balances the salty belly and the sour greens — three tastes in one bite.

The pickled mustard greens, suan cai, are not optional. Their acidity cuts the fat of the belly, and without them the bao turns cloyingly rich.

Worth knowing

• — Keep the steam moderate. At a rolling boil the buns wrinkle when the lid comes off and no smooth surface survives.
• — Wrap the steamer lid in a cloth. Condensation from the lid leaves wet patches on the buns.
• — The buns freeze cooked and reheat in steam in five minutes. Fresh they are softer, but the difference is small.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

620 kcal

Protein

26 g

Fat

34 g

Carbs

52 g

More from Taiwan

• Lu rou fan — Minced pork belly braised in soy sauce with spices, spooned over white rice.
• Taiwanese beef noodle soup — Wheat noodles in a dark broth of beef shank with fermented bean paste and spices.
• Pineapple cake — Squares of shortcrust with a dense filling of reduced pineapple and winter melon.