Steamed Meat Buns/Sang Yoke Bao

Each time I go to dim sum place I will definitely order their steamed baos/buns. The nearest Chinatown is about an hour away from my house so I don’t get to eat dim sum often. So when craving strike I will have to make it myself. I will usually use the Vietnamese pre-mixed bao flour but they are not always as fluffy as I wanted them to be. I tried making them from scratch a few times but the results were not good. The buns usually turn out yellowish and pretty chewy. I’ve been searching for a recipe that uses regular flour for the dough as most recipes I see used Hong Kong flour. I can’t seem to find them here in the US.

Finally I saw this posting from Vivian Phang Kitchen that used regular flour for her baos. I bookmarked them and finally get to try them out recently. It turns out pretty good when they were warm but slightly chewy texture when it cools down. Overall, I am satisfied with it for the time being until I get Diana to bring back a few kilograms of the Hong Kong flour for me from Malaysia.

Ingredients for the dough
Adapted from Vivian Phang Kitchen

Overnight sponge dough

60 gram flour
40ml water
1/2 tsp yeast
1 tsp sugar

Pau dough

110 ml water (I need 130 ml)
1/4 tsp yeast
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
2 cups plain flour (I used bleached flour)

For the meat filling:
Recipe Source: My Kitchen Snippets

500 gram ground pork or chicken
10 water chestnut – cut into small cubes
3 spring onions – cut small
2 cloves garlic – chopped
2 tsp ginger juice
1 tbsp corn flour

Seasonings:

2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp Chinese cooking wine
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp sesame oil
1/2 pepper
Salt to taste

3 hard boiled eggs – cut into 4 wedges each
12 1.5" sqaure parchment paper

1. Mix the meat filling ingredients and the seasonings together. Mix it well and set it aside to marinate for at least an hour.
2. For the sponge dough, mix all the ingredients together to form dough. Wrap the dough in a greased plastic wrap. Make a tight knob without leaving any space for the dough.
3. Let the dough to rest in the fridge for at least 4 hours or overnight. Thaw the dough 10-15 minutes at room temperature before using it. Tear the dough into small pieces before use.
4. For the bao dough, put all ingredients from (B) except flour into the mixing bowl. Mix well and then add in the overnight sponge dough pieces follow by the flour. Mix and knead them into smooth dough. Cover and let them rest for 10 minutes. (I let it rest for half an hour)
5. Transfer the dough to working surface. Divide the dough into 12 portions and mould into balls. Flatten balls into round shape. Then place 1 ½ tablespoon of the filling and 1 wedges of egg in the middle of circle. Wrap and pleat the dough to seal. Place bao onto a 1.5” square parchment paper, with the seal side up.
5. Let the baos rest for 15 minutes before steaming. In the meantime prepare the steamer. Bring the water up to a boil. Arrange buns into a steamer, leave about 1” gab in between buns. Steam over high heat for 12 minutes. Remove buns from steamer and cool on rack to prevent soggy bottom.

This is the bun flour that I found at the Asian store. I comes in a 5.5 pounds bag. The bao turns out really white and soft.