Make these Gua Bao, Taiwanese Pork Buns at home with this easy recipe, perfect for the weekend, and simple to make ahead.
I first ate these white, pillow-soft and steamed lotus leaf buns baking in about 2001 in Melbourne’s Little Bourke Street Chinatown. David and I ordered Peking duck and instead of flat pancakes we were given a tray of freshly steamed buns. Well, mind blown, almost never looked back from that point onward. Crisp roasted duck, freshly sliced and placed with some sauce and spring onions in soft white buns.
I guess I now think of them as what we now call Gua Bao – Taiwanese Pork Buns 割包 – and at home that’s one of the best ways to eat them. At the start of 2015 I wrote the recipe for the buns in my Sydney Morning Herald / The Age’s Good Food column, and it’s still one of my favourite recipes.
Simple steamed gua bao buns
From the February 25th 2015 edition of The Sydney Morning Herald
Those brilliantly white saltless steamed buns called “bao” you get in restaurants with crispy duck or pulled pork can be slightly tricky to make at home as they often use a specially treated flour that keeps the texture very light and a pure white colour. What I do is make the dough with a little rice starch to keep the crumb tender, then make then with extra water so they puff more.
Makes 8 supersized, or 12 regular buns
300ml warm water, about 25C
20g caster sugar
50g rice or potato starch (available in Asian supermarkets)
1 ½ tsp (half a 7g sachet) dry yeast
450g white bread flour
flour and oil to finish
- Put the warm water in a mixing bowl, whisk in the sugar, rice starch and yeast until dissolved then add the flour and mix to a dough. Cover and leave for 10 minutes then lightly knead the dough until smooth. Repeat this cover, leave and knead routine twice more then divide the dough into eight 100g pieces (for supersized bao) or twelve 70g pieces (regular sized). Roll these firmly into neat balls, cover and leave for 10 minutes.
- Roll each ball into a disk about 1cm thick with a little flour, brush the top of each disk with oil then fold in half. Sit each one on a disc of non-stick parchment (I use small paper steamer liners) on a tray, dust with flour, cover loosely and leave about 2 hours until doubled
- Place the risen bao in a bamboo steamer and steam for 10 – 12 minutes until slightly firm. Either serve immediately, or cool, bag and freeze for later. To reheat either lightly microwave or re-steam until piping hot.
Spiced pork with miso and apple
From the February 25th 2015 edition of The Sydney Morning Herald
Easy to cook, and can be kept in the fridge for a make-ahead dinner.
Serves 5-6
About 1.6kg pork shoulder, without the rind
50g red miso paste
10g smoked hot paprika
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 medium tart apple, like Granny Smith
1 small onion, peeled
one 3cm piece of root ginger
3 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
25g honey
1 tsp five-spice powder
salt, to taste
shredded spring onion, cucumber and hoisin sauce to serve with the bao
- Cut the pork into five or six large pieces, and place them in a large ovenproof casserole dish with a lid.
- Mix the miso paste, paprika and sesame oil in a bowl. Coarsely grate the apple (I leave the peel on, and discard the core), onion, ginger (again, unpeeled) then add with the garlic to the sauce.
- Mix well, spoon half on the meat and coat it well, then bake with the lid on for about 1 ½ hours until starting to become tender.
- Then stir in the rice syrup, five-spice powder and salt and bake uncovered until the sauce is thick and the meat starting to fall apart (if your dish is metal, like a Le Creuset, you can reduce in on the stove top, turning the meat in the sauce)
- Serve the meat on a plate with the sauce in a bowl, and the steamed bao, spring onion, cucumber and hoisin on the side, and let everyone help themselves to slices of the meat and accompaniments.
