Last weekend I decided to make some Chinese steamed buns. However, I did not have the special Chinese bun flour from the oriental shop which would make my buns’ skin whiter. I decided to just use the Lighthouse brand extra white, low protein self-raising flour and the buns turned out just as good as the ones in the dim sum restaurant. Here is the recipe for the dough and filling of the buns:
For the dough
3 cups Lighthouse cake, sponges and steamed buns self-raising flour
1 teaspoon dried yeast
1 cup of milk
60g sugar
1 tbsp oil
For the Filling:
400g of pork and veal minced
5 tablespoon spring onions
1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
1 tablespoon of sesame oil
1 tablespoon light soya sauce
1 tablespoon Chinese cooking wine
1/2 teaspoon of sugar
1 tbsp of corn starch
A pinch of salt and pepper
Methods:
You can knead by hand if you don’t have a food processor. I knead mine in my Thermomix.
Firstly, I poured in the yeast, milk and oil into the mixing bowl of the Thermomix and set the cooking time for 1 minute at 37 degrees Celcius at speed 2. This first step is to activate the yeast at the warm temperature.
Next, I will add self-raising flour and start to knead for 3 minutes.
After the kneading process, I will just leave the dough in the mixing bowl to proof for 1 hour or until the dough doubled its size.
After 1 hour, the dough should be doubled in size, transfer the dough on to a floured surface and shape the dough into 10 small balls.
With a rolling pin flatten the dough, make sure you roll each ball flat, like a patty and the outer layer is thinner than the inner part because it has to support the weight of the filling.
As for the filling, mix all the ingredients together.
Place a tablespoon of filling into the patty and start to pleat the edge of the patty to make it look like Chinese bun. Each bun will fit on top of a small square baking paper.
Put all the buns in the steamer and add some warm water at the bottom of the steamer without turning on the stove and let them proof for another 30 minutes.
Steamed the buns for about 25 minutes and turn off the fire. Do not remove the lid of the steamer at this point because it will cause the buns to sag, but leave the buns in the steamer for another 5 minutes.
