Bao Buns (vegan)

Bao buns are these soft white steamed buns that you can fill with whatever you want, an Asian style filling or just any leftovers you may have in your fridge. They can be eaten right after being steamed or reheated 30 seconds in the microwave. I only recently got a bamboo steamer but if you don't have one check out my post on how to steam without a steamer.

Here's the recipe for 8 - 10 small buns :

- 1.5 cup / 180 g plain flour

- Half a bag of active (or instant) dry yeast. A bag usually contains about 7g

- 1/4 tsp / 2 g baking powder

- 1.5 tbsp / 15 g white sugar

- A pinch of salt

- 1/2 cup / 100 g / 100 ml lukewarm water

- 2 tbsp / 17 g vegetable oil, plus some extra oil to grease the bowl

You will also need :

- Parchment paper (baking paper)

- A 10 cm round cutter (or a drinking glass if you don't have a cutter, you'll just have to pass a knife around the glass when you cut out the Bao's as a glass isn't sharp enough)

- A rolling pin (or anything you have to roll out the dough, a wine bottle works fine)

- A large bowl

- A cloth

• If you are using active dry yeast, mix the yeast into the lukewarm water and let it sit for a few minutes. If you have instant dry yeast, add it directly to the flour.

• Mix all the dry ingredients together in the bowl.

• Add the water and the oil into the flour and mix it until everything is combined.

• Flour your working surface and knead the dough for about 5 minutes with your hands until there are no more lumps and the dough gets very soft and doesn't stick to your hands anymore. Add some more flour if necessary.

• Clean your bowl and grease it with some oil, put the dough into the bowl and grease the dough with oil again to prevent it from drying. Cover the bowl with a cloth and let it sit until the dough doubles in volume (about 1h to 1h 30 min).

• While the dough is resting cut out some squares of about the size of the cutter you'll be using) in the parchment paper. And prepare your filling!

• Take out the dough and knead it again with your hands a few times to break the air bubbles.

• Roll out the dough, it may seem like the dough is retracting at first but just keep rolling out until it's about half a cm thin.

• Cut out the buns and put each bun on a paper. Grease the top of each bun with a bit of oil, this step is important for the buns to open once they're steamed.

• Fold each bun in two and flatten them again with the rolling pin. Let them sit for 30 min, in the meantime you can boil your water to steam them.

• Steam the buns for 12 min.

• If you have too much dough and don't want to steam them all, you can keep the dough in the fridge but grease them well with oil to prevent them from forming a crust. I love eating them with some Chinese eggplants (check out the recipe on the blog!) but you can stir fry any vegetables you have at home.

Here's how you can how you can do a quick filling at home:

• Heat up some oil in your pan and add some ginger/garlic paste. I put it in everything, it's soo good, you can buy it already made or make it yourself by just mixing some garlic cloves and ginger root in a blender.

• Add your vegetables and stir fry. If you have vegetables that take a bit more time to cook I usually pre-cook them in the oil before adding the paste to prevent the garlic from burning.

• Once the veggies are almost cooked, add some soy sauce, some Chinese black vinegar, some Mirin, chili flakes, sesame seeds, and stir fry everything together.

If you don't have all this at home just add some soy sauce and a bit of pepper and it'll be just fine!

ENJOY!