Bao Dough by Po-Po (Chan Yook Hai Choy)
INGREDIENTS

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Dough:

4 level cups all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

½ tsp salt

4 Tsp. Baking POWDER

Sift dry ingredients well

Add 2 cups less 1 TBSP cold milk

Knead for 15 minutes (I use my KitchenAid with dough hook at lowest setting)

Rest for 15 minutes.

Add 1 TBSP vegetable oil and knead again for 10 minutes.

Dough will be sticky, but it will firm up a little once it is out of the bowl.

Roll into a log and cut into 12 pieces. 

Flatten each piece into a circle and fill.

Filling:

• Char siu
• Diced chicken, diced Chinese mushroom, chopped onion, diced Chinese sausage, thin julienne ginger. Stir-fry together. Add oyster sauce, chicken stock, and thicken with cornstarch slurry. Should be saucy…
• Chinese sausage: lapcheung - cut into 4 pieces crosswise
• Use cupcake/muffin paper liners under each bao. Steam for 15 minutes. Take off lid, wipe off excess moisture, and steam for another 5 minutes.

Baos may be cooled then frozen.
Store in bags. 

To eat: 
Steam from frozen 10 minutes, or microwave until center is hot (2 minutes?)

3 to 4 pound boneless pork butt,
in 1 1/2 inch slices, 
marinated in the fridge for 3 days 
in a mixture of hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, 
sugar, salt, MSG, and red food colouring. 

Slices were roasted in the 400F oven 
for 45 minutes, 
turning and basting once.

Char siu diced and 
ready for the wok to be made into filling.

Diced char siu stir-fried 
with more Hoisin sauce, oyster sauce,
chicken stock,
thickened with cornstarch slurry.

Dough can be made from pre-packaged mix, 
or the recipe at the end of this page. 

Divide the dough into 10 - 11 balls.

The tortilla press my Mom brought back 
from a trip to Chinatown in New York.

It turns out perfect wraps for baos or har gow.

A ball of dough flattened 
and ready to be filled

Bao wrapper ready for the filling

With the wrapper in the left hand. 

Place a large TBSP full of filling in the
middle of the wrapper

Place the thumb in the middle. 

Using right hand, pull the wrapper around the
filling, forming pleats.

Continue pleating 
as you rotate the "ball" in your left hand.

Pleating 

Pleating completed

Bring a large pot of water 
with 1/4 cup of vinegar (keeps baos white)
in the steamer to boil. 

Place baos in the steamer and 
steam for 15 minutes. 

Take off cover, 
wipe off excess moisture on the lid, 
and steam for another 5 minutes.

Baos fresh out of the steamer

Inside the steamed bao: 
lots of sauce, 
dough is fluffy and 
good chewy mouth-feel.

Lapcheung bao - Chinese sausage.

If you have dough leftover, 
use Chinese sausage as filling. 

Cut one lapcheung into four pieces crosswise.

Boil briefly to soften and
wrap like sausage roll. 

Steam as other baos.