Big Baozi

Big baozi. While on a recent trip to taiwan i was honored to spend a few irreplaceable hours in the home and kitchen of a local urban family. There are many variations in fillings meat or vegetarian and preparations though the buns are most often steamed. My generous host not only prepared a traditional taiwanese breakfast lunch and dinner. They are not difficult to make but it can be very tricky to get them right especially when it comes to making a nice wrapper which rises properly has a smooth look and a soft fluffy texture.

But also took me shopping for the day s fresh ingredients and allowed me to get hands on with a few of the recipes. Popular as street food and an everyday family dish in china steamed bao buns baozi 包子 is one of the foods i really enjoy cooking. They re my emergency meal source. This recipe was inspired by the bao that i tried a few years ago in shanghai.

They are a variation of mantou from northern china. The freezer staples i can t do without are frozen rice frozen man tou frozen dumplings and finally some sort of savory bun like these steamed pork buns baozi 包子 in chinese.