Recently I found a kit from School of Wok in Sainsburys that taught you had to make Steamed Fluffy Bao Buns at home. If you don’t know what steamed buns are they are, from what I gather, an Asian bun, usually cooked in a bamboo steamer and filled with all kinds of deliciousness. I love them. My love for them began in 2019 with the Wagamama’s steamed fluffy buns and then lockdown hit and I couldn’t get them anymore. Now I know how to make them my life feels complete. It was probably one of the best things we’d ever made together at home actually. We were fully inspired by Wagamama’s menu and made a pork belly, apple, carrot and coriander filling with a siracha mayo.
The School of Wok Bao Bun kit comes with the bun mix and a BBQ mariande for the chosen meat. It also includes some rice wine for chosen pickeled vegetable. I chopped up a granny smith green apple into matchstick shapes and grated a carrot before mixing the wine vinegar with a little salt, sugar and water. I then gave the apple and carrot a mix up with the pickle liquid and kept stiring occasionally as I made up the rest of the dish. For the pork belly we smothered it in the BBQ sauce and baked in the oven, turning midway. The buns were not particularly hard to make however we have neither a wok nor a bamboo steaming basket. This lead to a pretty interesting set up. We basically had a big pan of boiling water, a heat resistant bowl with a plate on top covered in greaseproof paper. We then added a couple of buns to the plate and steamed with the lid on the pan for around 8 minutes. The School of Wok kit was really helpful and explained this as an ideal set up. As long as you have a deep lidded pan in the home then you can make these Steamed Fluffy Bao Buns!
We ended up making about 8 or so steamed buns on total, maybe a couple more, because we added too much water and then needed to add more flour to compensate. How the dough still managed to raise and steam as well as it did I do not know. I didn’t roll them out very thin either so we had a lot of different sized buns. I found the kit really easy to use and would absolutely do this again. I love trying to recreate meals at home and would love to try other fillings with the bao buns in the future. They are guarenteed to be a party pleaser, can have a variety of veggie fillings and actually don’t take too long when you know what you’re doing.
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