EDIT: Guys, huge important thing that I want to put up here. We recently found out (9/12/18) that the Chinese baker's ammonium - choufen - is roughly half ammonium bicarbonate and half baking soda. If you're working with pure ammonium bicarbonate (i.e. baker's ammonia in the West) instead of that 4g Chinese baker's ammonium go with 2g ammonium bicarbonate and 2g baking soda. We've had a couple people that live in the USA/Europe report an extremely intense ammonium smell from their buns... we believe this is likely the reason, as we've had reports of successes from people Hong Kong and Singapore-based. Update on Oct 19th, 2021. We did a video using the active rice wine starter, which is kinda similar with sourdough starter in some ways, and here's the video and you can read the pinned notes for more details about the starter and the dough. ua-cam.com/video/hR39C5Gmr1c/v-deo.html _____________ So a few notes: 1. Many recipes (both on the Chinese and English language internet) use yeast instead of a natural sourdough starter. This will not give the correct texture to the Char Siu Bao. The basic idea behind Char Siu Bao dough is that mix of lactic acid from the starter and the super alkaline baker's ammonia. 2. If you make this, there's two big issues that people tend to run up against - first, yellow dough. If your baozi end up yellow that's a sign that the dough is overly alkaline, and that the dough has not been fermented for a long enough period of time. The splash of vinegar helps preserve the color as well. What we used in the video was about a half tablespoon of vinegar essence, which's about 20% acetic acid. 3. Second issue is lack of 'cracking'. Your Baozi shouldn't be opening along the pleats, the ammonia should spread the Baozi when steaming so that it cracks naturally. This could be caused by either (1) not enough leavening agents (2) not incorporating the ammonia well enough into the dough (3) wrapping the Baozi too loosely or (4) your steaming heat not being hot enough. 4. Speaking of which, restaurants use these really intense contraptions that shoot pressurized steam up into their steaming racks. Using that sort of set-up, they can steam these in like five minutes. Point being though, make sure you seal that guy in real good with those wet towels if (like us) whatever you're using doesn't have a heavy lid. 5. Lastly, I know this all might've seemed a bit overwhelming. This is a restaurant dish, ain't exactly something that a normal person would whip up on a Wednesday night. A deep dive into Dim Sum reveals just how incredible that meal is - this stuff's like a level of complexity that most other cuisines would reserve for like special occasion festival foods. It's really a testament to the brilliance and organizational prowess of these places that they can pump out mountains of this stuff for like a few bucks a pop. So even if you never make this, I hope that you can appreciate it a little more next time you're out at Dim Sum :) Oh, and to all the Cantonese speakers out there apologies for my brutal mispronouciation of 臭粉, and continuously (mistakenly) defaulting back to the Mandarin pronunciation for Char Siu Bao sauce. In the future, I think I'm just gunna use Cantonese name for the dishes themselves but Mandarin for any ingredients/techniques... at least until the day I properly learn Cantonese. My English in the narration's bad enough as is, whenever I toss in Mandarin it's worse, and any time I try to reach for the Cantonese things just start sounding downright silly. Edit: To all of y'all that're saying that this's too difficult... listen, I get it. But here's something I don't quite understand: go search UA-cam for Western-style sourdough bread. You'll find precisely zero comments saying "ahh... this is too involved!" Like proper sourdough bread, proper Char Siu Bao *is* involved. If you're not into making it yourself, totally understandable - give you local Dim Sum restaurant some more well deserved business!
So more notes from me, lol EDITED on 27th Aug, adding note No. 8. 1. Making sure you're using a clean container: When making the mother and the starter dough, make sure the container is clean and free of oil. We don't want too much "extra" bacterial in the fermentation process. Also, before you knead the dough together, remember to wash your hands thoroughly with hand soap/detergent. Knead with a wet hand is OK. 2. Using stand mixer: You can totally use stand mixer, in fact it'll save you a lot of the trouble avoiding sticking to your hand, and it'll easier if you're making a bigger batch. Just follow the steps, and mix the stuff in on speed one. Be careful not to overmix. 3. The texture of the dough: This is a relatively soft and sticky dough. It'll be quite sticky at the time after the dough is form with the dry ingredients and before adding the lard. If you'e familiar with bread making, I'd say it's similar to a 60-65% hydration dough. 4. Remember to use a damp towel to cover the bowl when resting the finished dough. Wet it again at the half hour mark if your towel is getting dry. Because you really want to keep it soft and moist. 5. Using the sound to check alkalinity: Experienced Chinese pastry chefs can judge the alkalinity by the sound of the dough. Basic idea: if the dough's sound is dull and heavy, then it's on the alkaline side (not enough fermentation thus not enough small wholes); if the dough sounds too much like a smacking (we describe the sound as "pia"), then it's still on the acidic side (too heavy on fermentation and too airy inside). So the sound should be somewhere in between. Of course, smelling it at the earlier stage before adding dry ingredients would be more helpful, lol. 6. Beaware of the bun breaking: While we want to bun to crack, we don't want it to break along the pleats. One possible culprit here would be the filling. If the filling gets into your pleats, it may cause breaking along the pleats or leaking. So if you're not too confident in wrapping baozi, try to switch the ratio of the filling to half char siu and half sauce, this will make it less "saucy" and makes it easier to wrap and ensure the pleats are intact. 7. Making and storing a bigger batch: We made a very small batch here, because we already have multiple testing batches lying in the fridge and freezer, lol. Right, you can totally make a bigger batch. After steaming, you can stored the cooled down ones in ziplock bags or air-tight container and freezer them (I have a batch that's been freezing for 6 months, lol). They freeze really well. When you're about to eat them, just take them out directly from the freezer, put them in a steamer and steam on high heat for 12 minutes, then they'll be ready to serve. 8. About the ammonium bicarbonate smell So right, the ammonium bicarbonate flavor is quite strong if you eat right after steaming. I'd recommend that after steaming, you let it sit for an hour or two and let any remaining ammonium bicarbonate gas evaporate and then steam it again for 8 minutes to heat it up before serving (and obviously you can also save them up and reheat it whenever you want). Resting after steaming is how some restaurants do in order to achieve a better taste (same idea of letting alkaline noodle rest after making it and thus getting rid of the alkaline taste and smell). *IMPORTANT* : Our bottle of "Choufen" (the smelling powder/ammonium bicarbonate), is a mixture of ammonium bicarbonate *AND* sodium bicarbonate, but it doesn't give out the ratio. Some product you'd be using may be higher in ammonium bicarbonate content and giving the buns a stronger ammonia smell. For us, the buns would have a slight hint of ammonia, but it disappears after we let it sit for two hours and re-steam it. I think the smell may have to do with the ammonium bicarbonate ratio. Also, for the stuff that we're using, the suggested ratio printed on the jar is 1-3% of the total weight of the flour (which the high end is way higher than the ratio called for if just using *pure* *ammonium* *bicarbonate* ). You should refer to the label on the product you're using and see what is in it (pure ammonium bicarbonate or a mixture with other leavening agents) and what percentage it suggests. If you're using *pure* ammonium bicarbonate, the percentage should weight 0.5%-1.5% of the starter dough, instead of the 2% "choufen (smelling powder)" that we called for in the recipe. In this case, you can use 1% *pure* ammonium bicarbonate and 1% baking soda (1% of the weight of the starter dough, i.e. 200 grams in this recipe), it should work similarly with "Choufen".
Chinese Cooking Demystified Love these explanations! Thank you and Steph for doing them, Chris. Now. Chris. A request ~ and a bit of "motherly" advice. Stop self deprecating! There's never anything to apologize for! Things beyond your control ~ lighting in your kitchen, your voice, for goodness sake. Yes, saying your pronunciation of a second language could use improvement is ~sort of ok. But for goodness sake, so, so few people learn to speak a second language, let alone different dialects! You should be deeply proud! But to say your English voice is "bad enough"? No, just no! It's yours. It's not harsh, whiny, too high pitched, too low, not loud enough, too loud~do you get the picture? We ALL hate the sound of our own voices. So take my word for it, please. It is absolutely no problem listening for 5, 10 or 15 minutes! Your timbre, enunciation and pronunciation are perfect. Nuff said. ☺ Old(ish) subscriber rant over. ☺ You are both doing a bang up job at this! I'm so proud of you. This is so obviously a labour of love and it's deeply appreciated. Love Jenn 💖 in Canada 🍁
@@thisissteph9834 you realise I am Correct and block instead. Interesting approach. I enjoyed how you mentioned the chef 除胁 from the CCTV show like he is a close mentor to you too.
@@randomstoragespace Well, really, if you're so good then do a video or recipe to prove it, share your great knowledge with the world, be a force of good. We need legit resources. I delete all your previous comments because it's annoying to see a jerk being mean to others. I'm done dealing with crazy attention whores that bark like a mad dog. And apparently, you even bothered to register a new account and come back to keep barking. Never mentioned Chen Xun as my mentor, I said I learned the importance of heat from him. Btw, you got his name's characters wrong. So guess you can't read Chinese?
I did it I finally did it, I made them!!!! They’re amazing although so much work but totally worth it. The flavours were so perfect especially combined with the home made char siu recipe. Absolutely better than the frozen ones I buy, it’ll be hard to go back to them after the leftovers run out. I think the only thing that I needed to do differently would be cover with a lid and towel to get more intense steam.
Wow! Thanks for showing us how it is made! The difficulty and lengthiness of making char siu baos are no joke! it just shows how much detail is required to perfect the art of Chinese cuisine. I’m really glad you’re also sharing and keeping this available for generations to come because I’m so scared that one day no one will continue to make these authentic beautiful dishes.
Another dish that I have taken for granted for decades. BBQ pork buns were the highlight of mum taking us as kids to yum cha / dim sum 30 years ago. I'll never make this at home, but I now have a profound respect for Char Siu Bao. Thank you for making these videos!
I really love watching your channel! Although there are so many complaints, but this is the real way how to cook authentic chinese dishes. Seriously, if people don't like it, they should just buy from store. I fully support the hardwork you put in making the authentic way. thank you! i will definitely try this one
Of all the videos I've watch in the past, I must give you full props on the ingredients and spot on methods! My father was a Dim Sum Sifu in Guangzhou and showed me how to make this once, But over the years, I have forgotten some of the ingredients and you brought it all back. Special thanks for such an awesome legit video!
Watching from California! Thank you both so much for this incredible recipe. I look forward to perfecting it this coming year for my boyfriend who's Cantonese :)
I have been looking for chinese steam bun recipe and watch so many videos This is first video that use natural yeast dough I will try this recipe for sure This video teach more detail Very clear Thank you to Steph for sharing the recipe and all details and explanation Thank you Chris to speak english very clear and not too fast not too slow just perfect Like teacher like professional
I tried a few of your recipes and they always come out great! I tried the char siu bao after watching the video 30 times, and it was a success. Fluffy and cracked like at the restaurant. I tried using 3g or 4g (the brand i use is Pure bought on amz), the 4g def gives an ammonium smell but leftovers heated the next day didn’t have any smell. Didn’t notice any difference in fluffiness/cracking. Keep on posting more ‘technical’ cooking videos, thank you!
That is a whole lot of work and like Steph said, "a bit on the complex side." I'll continue to get my bao at restaurants, but my respect to Chris and Steph for even attempting this. (Side note: that is the largest container of cream of tartar I've ever seen, and probably enough cream of tartar to last an entire Chinese village for an entire century. I shudder to think what a container that large would cost in the US, considering that a standard spice jar-sized container is $3.)
lol we live next to the wholesale market for the district, kinda by design. The selection's incredible, but for some products they only have large restaurant-sized containers. That container was about 40 CNY (5-6 bucks US), so not that bad. But yeah, we'll never ever be able to finish it. But yeah, Steph's been working on this for ages. Tough recipe, lots of variables, and there's so much nonsense out there (in Chinese, no less) that can throw you off course. Like, not using yeast was a big 'aha!' moment.
Made these today for the first time (roast pork was purchased in Quincy, MA and had 5+ year old sourdough on hand but all else was from scratch following the recipe precisely). We were able to purchase all ingredients including the choufan and soy paste! The bao turned out wonderfully well - except for the very strong ammonia smell due to the choufen. Next time, i will try 2gm of that powder and hope the smell is not so bad. I also adjusted the filling in each bun to have more meat (25 grams of filling per bao, utilizing a total of 120g of char siu - since we felt that the recipe as given was somehow light in the meat for each bun). Thank you so much for a fantastic recipe. Looking forward to your northern mantou recipe.
If the ammonia smell is strong after the first steam, you can freeze the steamed baos in the freezer in ziplock bag for a couple days, this would help with the smell a lot. Ours doesn't have the smell after the sitting. Some people report failure of the dough, but seeing you had success with an old sourdough, now I'm guessing the failures may be caused by young and not strong enough starter.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Hello again! So far, I have made your recipe about 5 times. Being a sourdough fanatic, I have tried tweaking the recipe in several areas. Just wanted to say first that this recipe makes the very best char siu bao I have tasted - including in very good restaurants. The one thing I wanted to let you know is that the buns do stand up to extended steaming (to about 12-15 minutes depending on how well the steam is trapped inside the steamers). I have found that wrapping the connecting area between the water and the lowest steaming tray will greatly help retain the steam inside the trays. Adding a few more minutes to the initial steaming also greatly reduces the smell of ammonia. My research of that particular chemical indicates that the ammonia smell dissipates with longer heating - thus making sure the heat stays inside the steaming units and increasing the cooking time helps to remove that strong smell. Lastly, I have also found that reducing the amount of choufen slightly, will work to puff up the final product and yet lessen the ammonia. Hope this is helpful to everyone who is trying to make this wonderful recipe. Thank you for your hard work and sharing.
You two are an absolute powerhouse. Your videos are incredibly detailed and well thought-out. Thanks for the vinegar tip on how to keep the bread white. I always wondered why my family's 饅頭 never look quite like the ones in restaurants and bakeries. Hope to use the 叉燒 filling recipe in conjunction with the 菠蘿包 recipe to try replicating the 叉燒包 from Tim Ho Wan!
Haha, the baked char siu bao at Tim Ho Wan uses a different topping than the one we showed in our bolobao video. We'll definitely make the baked version some day~
My friend chef used to do this some three decades back🤭! I hepled him with the wrapping and i also remember him using the old chinese weighing scale like the ones you hold by hand doing some balancing act!😊 Thanx for sharing the ingredients!🥰
Your char siu bao look legit! Even down to the square paper and how they crack open. I am learning so much from your videos. Also, that is the biggest container of Cream of Tartar I have even seen.
Yeah these were a lot of blood sweat & tears to figure out lol. Most Dim Sum restaurants nowadays understandably buy premade 'Char Siu Bao leavening' mixes that they can use with their sourdough. We kept on having an issue with having ours overly alkaline, so I recommended Cream of Tartar (how Western cooking would deal with the problem). Then as it turns out, some of the leavening mixes actually do contain Cream of Tartar!
This is definitely the definitive video on the preparation of this Chinese Yum Cha favourite. Many thanks for your extremely thorough presentation. Others pale by comparison.
Your video is really god sent. I had wasted a ton load of ingredients trying to make char siu pau. I gave up, after my fifth try, produced buns that were spotted brown after steaming and not to mention dense and doughy as usual, as well. Any idea as to why the dough became dotted with brown spots after steaming? Does using Crisco or any type of vegetable shortening affect the dough? Indeed, most recipes found on UA-cam or online are way too simplistic in my opinion. The results always taste bread like. Bread dough that has been steamed instead of baked. Never ever did I get fluffy, cotton soft textured buns like those sold at dim sum restaurants. From the looks of that steamed pau of yours, I am sure I have found a recipe worthy of an attempt again. Thank you for giving me hope again.
I hear you sister, lol. I had the same problem and I almost gave up on char siu bao too. But with enough obsessiveness and getting tired of the bullshit floating out there online, I dig deeper on old Cantonese cookbooks and interviews on old dim sum chefs. So long story short, the brown spots means the dough is overly alkaline and the ammonium bicarbonate is not mixed well enough. I don't know if you used a sourdough starter, the sourdough would help balance. But sometimes it's not enough, that's why I added creme of tartar to add acidity and ensure the consistent air is being created in the process. If you want to make sure you get it white, you can mix in 1/8 tsp of white rice vinegar in the dough besides adding vinegar in the steaming water. You can use shorterning to help with the color too, but I prefer the taste of lard. For the texture, cake flour is one of the keys. Don't use AP, thay may be the cause of the bread like texture. You can tag us on instagram with result of this recipe, we may be able to help you trouble shooting if it's not there (so many variables in the process so I can't guarantee that you'll be there 100% the first time you make it :) ). But I do hope you give a try and success!
First off, it's almost impossible to get the fluffy and snowy white homemade Pao at home because of the addictive and the processed flour used by restaurants. For the brown spots though, did you let the buns cool for few minutes after steaming before lifting the cover? After the heat is turn off, let the buns rest for about 5-10 minutes before uncovering the lid.
+Jocelyn Chong ua-cam.com/video/WHrn_pHW2so/v-deo.htmlm2s Joking aside... to reiterate, it has nothing to do with the flour... but rather the balance between the alkalinity and the acid in the dough :) Yellow spots = an overly alkaline dough.
Haha, black rice is my favorite in mixed grain rice. Btw, have you ever tried stir frying sweet potato noodles? They have this dish in Korea. I love that texture~
I got the idea for potato noodles from mu shu pork video (i think) where you talk about spring pancakes and what's tasty in them but don't actually make the pancakes. You show a stir fry with potato noodles and cabbage. But then I saw the sweet potato ones and wanted to try them, now I'm hooked! Question about something else I picked up though. I got these tiny dried shrimp that I've been using to flavor soup and oil and such, but they seem kind of inedible. Are you supposed to eat the tiny shrimp? I'd say they're about as big as my thumbnail. They make my broth taste great, but I'm a little put off by the idea of eating un-deveined shrimp.
So much detail on both theory and action, same as usual and topped it up with a little bit of history too. This makes it look easy but it's hard to perfect. Glorious video. Love it. Congrats to both of you nice people for sharing.
Thanks for the recipe! It is a very good recipe. I used western sourdough starter with success and didn’t use cream of tartar. I tried the recipe twice. Just as you said the result might not be great at the first go. The result of the first time was kinda dry and didn’t puff up so much. So I made some changes: 1. Slightly increased the amount of ammonium carbonate. 2. I substitute some part of cake flour with wheat starch. 3. Added some egg white. 4. Doubled the amount of lard. The result was great, not yellow at all, exactly like what you have in a dim sum restaurant.
Cool! Thanks for sharing the notes, this is such a difficult thing to make that feedback and notes are always helpful for others that're having troubles.
Hello there,first of all,I thankful when I found your recipy. I'm done many recipy with yeast,ofcouse the buns turned out dry and not taste like real Chinese bun. Your generosity sharing this recipy, I THANKYOU from my heart, I am going give it a try or even have to do it twice or more, I still want to make homemade buns for my family. Wish me luck and I keep watching your next videos.
Made them exactly as you showed all the way, scallion oil - awesome also added it to your congee with a soy, downed the whole pot. Char siu - Deelish! The bao had the right consistency but it still had the ammonium bicarbonate pungency to a still edible but not too pleasant degree I steamed for around 12 minutes, I'll try backing off a bit on the Ammonium bicarbonate and steaming a bit longer next time.
So right, the ammonium bicarbonate flavor is quite strong, you can try to dial it down a bit, but not too much as it's the key for the cracks. Another thing is that after steaming, you can let it sit for an hour or two and let the smell evaporate and then steam it again for 8 minutes before serving. That's how some restaurants do in order to achieve a better taste (same idea of letting alkaline noodle rest after making it and thus getting rid of the alkaline taste and smell).
These are a serious fav of mine and always wanted to know how they were made, think these are above my cook capability, but again luved the video as always!!!
I'm late to the party, but thank you, thank you, thank you for this recipe! Yes, I will make it, someday, when I manage to get enough courage. But even if it's not a dish to be whipped up on a busy Wednesday evening, it is soooo nice to see the whole thing done properly! I've had real Char Sui Bao and I've had the cake-like cheap stuff, and there is no contest: the cheap version has the wrong texture, the wrong taste, and you (or at least I) end up eating just the the filling and throwing out most of the tasteless bun. Properly made, everything comes together to be exactly right, and the dough's extremely light but still firm texture and its slightly sour taste complement the smooth filling perfectly, and instead of feeling cheated as if you just ate a Twinkie, your mouth is left happy, you have a huge smile of satisfaction, and a nice warm belly.
Hello, thank you for sharing this recipe. I would like to ask for the reactivating of Mother Dough, the addition of 100 flour and 50 water is regardless of the amount of mother dough needed to be activated? For example if I have 50g or 150g of mother dough from the freezer to be activated, do I use the same 100g flour and 50g water addition to both, if not what is the % to add actually? Also, the activation of mother dough schedule ends in the am to proceed to making of sourdough, which means one would end up making the Char Siu baos in the evening? Unless I have miss a step somewhere? Thank you so much for you help on this 😅🙏🏻
Thank you very much for your clear explanation and recipes. I made the bbq buns several time before, but it turned out did not look right. Your bbq buns look perfect and I will try it make it later.
Thank you for sharing this! You put a lot of effort into this and it does make me appreciate what's goes into making the (not so) humble char Siu bao. It's worth a go!!!! I'm game! Thanks
As someone that only speaks English, I want to thank you and mildly curse you for making me want to get my passport. Maybe some day I can just disappear for a year and take in the sights of sichuan, then maybe Laos, Thailand, Singapore, and a few other regions. Really, thanks for the inspiration. My kitchen is not the same anymore.
It's always nice to see comments like this:) We love exploring China and Asia, and it's always nice being able to show people what it's like (food-wise) here~
I love this recipe! It looks complicated but once i try it and see the end result I'm sure I'm gonna be hosting yam cha more often 😍 I've tried your sui mai recipe and it's incredible! Thanks always.
Thumbs up on this video. I've been searching for years now on a 'real' (proper) steamed bun recipe/technique, and pretty much all of the OTHER online instructions either end up with results that are absolutely not the real excellent ones shown in this video (ie. the proper chinese chinese dim sum restaurant ones!), or just some kind of smooth skin bun that is not fluffy at all. This video is the only one that appears to give the proper and full run-down and secrets on how to make the dim-sum restaurant (proper) steamed bun. Thanks very much for presenting this video. I will try it. I believe finally we have the real deal here. I had - for a very very very very long time - been interested in how they actually make the steamed buns exactly like the ones shown in the video. I had never succeeded --- the reason is --- those other so-called steam-bun recipes turn out to be totally simplistic, and missing all these critical steps (which those so-called instructors or home-cooks probably had absolutely no idea about). But - also - there are many published cook-books that also teach simplistic misleading steps --- like mix flour/water/yeast/baking powder etc. Totally misleading. So, once again - hats off to the maker of this video clip - I genuinely thank you for teaching us the proper way.
Cheers, appreciate it! Just a heads up that it *is* a tough recipe, took a while to get down and people's results have been roughly 50/50 - some people've been happily able to recreate with success, others have generally had issues with their starter or the ammonium bicarbonate they're using. So if you don't happen to get it on the first try, let us know and we'd be happy to help troubleshoot :) I think the big problem with Char Siu Bao is that it's very much it's own thing - they branched off from other Baozi quite a while ago. So I think maybe some English language writers might know how to make Baozi, throw their hands up in the air (as it isn't easy), toss some Char Siu in a Baozi and call it 'Char Siu Bao'.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Thanks for the heads-up! Very good point you made too about the Baozi!!!!! I think you hit that one right on the head! I believe you're right about it. You certainly covered all bases with this topic. That's why I'm extremely impressed about all this. I will remember this.....about what you mentioned. Thanks again! Best regards.
Thanks for another great video. I have huge respect for the both of you for going into the depth and explaining why everything is done. May I ask where you (narrator) are from? Your accent/dialect is fantastic!
Just made these using lorann's baker's ammonia and the recommended 2g/2g baking soda. I also subbed potato starch for the mung bean flour. I accidentally omitted the lard in the final dough, but the texture seemed okay without it. However, the ammonia smell still overwhelmed me to the point of not being able to enjoy them, even when cut. We steamed for 10 minutes, but perhaps we needed more time, as some of the bottoms of the baozi still had some soft/wet spots where they were thinner. That was a bummer, but thankfully I made 1kg of char siu for this, so our freezer is stocked for additional iterations. I will happily report that the potato starch seemed to be a good call for the bao sauce, though. Good overall consistency especially considering I also used lard as my scallion fat.
finally someone said this, I also found the bao that entered the steamer was different from the one that came out. The folds of the buns are also different.
Your videos are at another level. Made another batch today but with limited resources, no ammonium bicarb and very low protein flour. The buns were cracked wide open. Do you reckon there's a relationship between flour protein/gluten formation and the amount of cracking? I'm imagining tearing a cake vs tearing bread. Thanks for all the content.
Lo Mai Gai is on the list. It should be coming out in the coming monthes. We wanna pace out the dim sum recipes though, something like one in a month or two. And it also takes a lot of time to test~ Like this one took more than half a year, lol.
Awesome!! Thanks for the reply. Wowzers, that's amazing. Thanks for all the hard work. This is really exciting and humbling to see how this amazing food is made on a high level.
@@thisissteph9834 The work you put into researching this recipe shows! Just made 10 char siu bao using your recipe, and although there is a strong ammonia aroma to them, they will NOT last the night..... I WILL finish them.....Thank you so much!
Thank you very much for the knowledge!! Fascinating. CSB's my favourite. NOW I know how it's made. It'll be a whole new different experience for me next time i eat one :).
hey chinese cooking demystified, 孔子here. I never had 叉烧包 back in the days. it looks super delicious, but i cant open the written recipe from reddit. can i just go with the ingredients from the video?
what should you do with the starter dough if you want to steam for dinner later in the day? Put it in the fridge, make the final dough and rest that in the fridge or just steam and resteam later?
I don't know if I'll ever make these. I'll probably just stick to basic baozi. Nevertheless, I find this video fun to watch because of all the components that make up this dish.
Thanks so much for this detailed recipe. Since you recommend 2 g of ammonium bicarbonate and 2 g of baking soda, could I go ahead and just use all baking soda? I’d like to avoid spending money on something I will only use 2 grams of.
Thanks for sharing this recipe. How long do you let the dough to proof before steaming? Curious: why the need to add cream of tartar? I know dim sum chef don't use cream of tartar in the bao dough so may you tell me why do you use it and can I omit it?
Wow.. That's what I've looked for on the whole internet. I've tried many recipes but failed continuously. I've found some tips in your guide and relised some hope in my next try :))) Btw, how long could we keep the mother dough for the next use? And how to keep it? Can we continue to feed it (40 g flour + 20g water) every day?
It can stay in the fridge for a week, after that you'll want to freeze it. You can follow the baker's schedule on how to reactivate it after taking it out of the fridge. If you freeze it, thaw overnight in the fridge, then take it out and reactivate~ You can continue to feed it, but it'll end up getting really big, lol.
Hi, I’m trying to prepare the scallion oil, is it ok to use other type of oil instead of peanut oil? I have olive , avocado or canola at home? Is it that critical. Thank you, I enjoyed your videos very much and I would like you know that I was successful on making your Baozi. Thanks again.
I finally had success today! It is the third time I do this recipe and I follow everything to the T. Thank you so much. One question, can the dough be refrigerated and be used later?
Congrats! You're the very few ones that got it, haha. Never tried refrigerated the dough, sorry can't help with that. I'd venture to say the mother may be able to keep in the fridge? But you'll need to "wake it up" by bring it to temp and maybe even feed it once at least.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified I did it with the amended amount of ammonia. Bicarbonate and baking soda. I can still detect the ammonia smell. Someone suggested baking it twice and even when I idd tat, I can’t get rid of the smell.
Hello, watched a Chinese dim sum restaurant make these in China. They used "alkaline" water in the doufh, what would that be in your recipe? That had ammonium, baking powder, and the water was to balance out the sourness.
Great video as always, could this be done with “regular” sourdough instead? On a sidenote i have another question: Is salt different in China, as if less strong or are the grains bigger? Not trying to insult you or anything, but i have already tried some recipes from your channel and i always cut some of the salt. The dishes still end great and even sometimes a little bit too salty. I ask this mainly because i started cooking “traditional” chinese food fist via websites and some of the recipes had the same problem, i followed some step by step and the result was inedible. The one i use is not that fine, somewhat between table salt and sea salt.
Hmm... interesting question. First off, what brand of salt are you using? Maybe we could pick up a bag on Taobao and do a little taste test. That said, I'd guess that soy sauce and/or chili bean paste (i.e. Pixian Doubanjiang) brands might be more to blame. If you get low quality of either one of those two things, they're more 'sharp/salty' and less umami. Which brands are you using for those? When we test these recipes, we use "Yipinxian" soy sauce and "Juanchengpai" chili bean paste... both of which are pretty good (the best mass produced brands in our opinion) and I could find at the Chinese supermarket in Philly back in the USA. Of course, it might also just be different taste buds working differently. Neither me nor Steph are the sort that are particularly sensitive to salinity - e.g. 'balanced' for me is 'too salty' for my Mom. Re the sourdough you got, what's the water:flour ratio? If it's 1:2 you're good to go and you can jump in at 1:09 :)
Ah well, yeah I guess I'll trust ya on the salt then :) Perhaps next time you're in a Chinese supermarket, pick up some salt there and see if you can tell a difference ('Sichuan salt', if available). Re the chili bean paste, I personally dislike Lee Kum Kee. Fuschia Dumlop was talking to one of her chef friends about it, and this was his opinion (which I'd agree with): "Chef Zhang points out that [Lee Kum Kee Chili Bean Paste] is made by a Cantonese rather than a Sichuanese company, and contains various non-traditional additives, such as sugar, garlic, modified cornstarch, lactic acid and two flavour enhancers. (It’s hard to understand why additives are required in a product that traditionally keeps well and is intensely flavoured…) He didn’t feel this was really suitable for creating an authentic Sichuanese ‘homestyle flavour’ （家常味型）, because the colour and the flavour were wrong. (Sichuanese chilli bean pastes, once matured, have a deep, almost-purplish red colour.)" We use Juanchengpai when testing, which is generally in our opinion the best of the mass produced stuff (there's a Sichuan shop at our local market that sells some awesome artisinal stuff, we've gotta like force ourselves not to use it for the sake of replication haha). I could find it at the Chinese supermarket near my parent's place in Philly, or it's also (super over-priced) on Amazon: www.amazon.com/Sichuan-Pixian-Boad-Paste-Chili/dp/B01M31VHNZ/
Chinese Cooking Demystified That’s a great idea, the salt one, would you like me to share the results with you? I’ll see if i can find the brand you mentioned since amazon isn’t available in my town :( In case i can’t find it, would i become persona non grata in sichuan if i use lee kum kee? 😩
Haha use what you got! Just try to opt for something nicer if you have a choice. Like, where we live in Shenzhen fresh western herbs cost a damn fortune, so when I'm cooking Western food I use dried. Is it a perfect solution? Nope. Can you still whip up some tasty food? Absolutely. Or if you're up for a project, ChinaSichuanFood (great blog btw, best English language blog for Chinese food by far) has a recipe for how to ferment it yourself: www.chinasichuanfood.com/doubanjiang/
Chinese Cooking Demystified heh, that’s like my main source for chinese cooking :) But sure, sometimes it is more about the technique and process than about the ingredients, i’ll see what i can do
Nope! Yeast'll actually give a really different texture here - think something akin to a leavened street breakfast Baozi. Took a while going down that road before realizing the dead end. If you keep on feeding your mother dough, it can last basically indefinitely. There's a restaurant in North Point that's famously kept their mother dough since the 1960s.
I doubled the recipe and my yield was about 450 grams of char siu bao sauce. (Had to sub garbonzo bean flour for mong bean). Per the ratio given each gram of pork gets 3.85 grams of sauce. So from the original recipe the amount of char siu the sauce can mix with is approximately 58 grams. If using 15 grams of filling this should result in about 11 buns as a final product.
Very authentic. Good method if running a business but to satisfy the occasional char siu bao craving, I think I will just use the shop pre-mix bao flour. But thanks for sharing your recipe and method. I love watching food made authentically and you've done it incredibly well.
Pre-mix is usually great - provides excellent results. But the point of this video is to offer a way to make real hong kong char siew bao without taking the 'easy way out' or the uneducated way out.
Hi, I have tried to make this recipe twice but both failed at the starter dough stage. I followed the baker's schedule, by the 3rd day, the mother dough do smell a bit sour, but do not have any bubble and the consistency is not as loose as your video (i.e when I tilt the bow, the mother dough doesn't flow, although the dough do look moist and elastic when I scoop it out). I proceed to make the starter dough, and the next day, the starter dough do not double in size. I even let the starter dough sit for another 24 hours and it do not double in size either (but the sour smell gets stronger). Do you have any suggestion how I can trouble shoot or proceed? My all purpose flour is less than a year old. Room temperature is between 82-88F, humidity is around 50%. Thanks!
Hmm, I think the humidity is too low, the ideal would be at least 80% (here in southern China is basically always higher than 80%). Maybe try using a more tightly closed container and longer time (more than 4 days, make it to even 6 days, I'll do 5-6 days in winter) for the mother dough. Also cover a big damp towel around the container to create a more humid environment. I think climate really make s difference, our viewers from Hong Kong and Singapore have no problem recreating it. We can't see all UA-cam comments, you can tag us on Instagram (same name as the channel), it'll be easier to see the message.
@@thisissteph9834 Thanks Steph! I will give it another try and let the mother dough ferment longer. During my second try, I actually exhale a puff of air into the container before closing the saran wrap thinking the moist air would trap in the container and increase humidity. That didn't work either, ha ha. But I think the moist towel drape on top of the container make sense. If that doesn't work, I may just stick the container in a big Rubbermaid container filled with water to create a 90+% humid environment in my garage. By the way, I'm in South Florida, you would think it will be humid enough.
For the Starter Dough, do you use 75g or 80g of water? The recipe said 80g, but I think you said 75g. I like to make these baos, but i don't want to mess up. Please let me know. Thank you!
![[Sub] Steamed Pork Bun Recipe(Baozi)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0RaGaZbgXog/mqdefault.jpg)
EDIT: Guys, huge important thing that I want to put up here. We recently found out (9/12/18) that the Chinese baker's ammonium - choufen - is roughly half ammonium bicarbonate and half baking soda. If you're working with pure ammonium bicarbonate (i.e. baker's ammonia in the West) instead of that 4g Chinese baker's ammonium go with 2g ammonium bicarbonate and 2g baking soda.
We've had a couple people that live in the USA/Europe report an extremely intense ammonium smell from their buns... we believe this is likely the reason, as we've had reports of successes from people Hong Kong and Singapore-based.
Update on Oct 19th, 2021. We did a video using the active rice wine starter, which is kinda similar with sourdough starter in some ways, and here's the video and you can read the pinned notes for more details about the starter and the dough. ua-cam.com/video/hR39C5Gmr1c/v-deo.html
_____________
So a few notes:
1. Many recipes (both on the Chinese and English language internet) use yeast instead of a natural sourdough starter. This will not give the correct texture to the Char Siu Bao. The basic idea behind Char Siu Bao dough is that mix of lactic acid from the starter and the super alkaline baker's ammonia.
2. If you make this, there's two big issues that people tend to run up against - first, yellow dough. If your baozi end up yellow that's a sign that the dough is overly alkaline, and that the dough has not been fermented for a long enough period of time. The splash of vinegar helps preserve the color as well. What we used in the video was about a half tablespoon of vinegar essence, which's about 20% acetic acid.
3. Second issue is lack of 'cracking'. Your Baozi shouldn't be opening along the pleats, the ammonia should spread the Baozi when steaming so that it cracks naturally. This could be caused by either (1) not enough leavening agents (2) not incorporating the ammonia well enough into the dough (3) wrapping the Baozi too loosely or (4) your steaming heat not being hot enough.
4. Speaking of which, restaurants use these really intense contraptions that shoot pressurized steam up into their steaming racks. Using that sort of set-up, they can steam these in like five minutes. Point being though, make sure you seal that guy in real good with those wet towels if (like us) whatever you're using doesn't have a heavy lid.
5. Lastly, I know this all might've seemed a bit overwhelming. This is a restaurant dish, ain't exactly something that a normal person would whip up on a Wednesday night. A deep dive into Dim Sum reveals just how incredible that meal is - this stuff's like a level of complexity that most other cuisines would reserve for like special occasion festival foods. It's really a testament to the brilliance and organizational prowess of these places that they can pump out mountains of this stuff for like a few bucks a pop. So even if you never make this, I hope that you can appreciate it a little more next time you're out at Dim Sum :)
Oh, and to all the Cantonese speakers out there apologies for my brutal mispronouciation of 臭粉, and continuously (mistakenly) defaulting back to the Mandarin pronunciation for Char Siu Bao sauce. In the future, I think I'm just gunna use Cantonese name for the dishes themselves but Mandarin for any ingredients/techniques... at least until the day I properly learn Cantonese. My English in the narration's bad enough as is, whenever I toss in Mandarin it's worse, and any time I try to reach for the Cantonese things just start sounding downright silly.
Edit: To all of y'all that're saying that this's too difficult... listen, I get it. But here's something I don't quite understand: go search UA-cam for Western-style sourdough bread. You'll find precisely zero comments saying "ahh... this is too involved!" Like proper sourdough bread, proper Char Siu Bao *is* involved. If you're not into making it yourself, totally understandable - give you local Dim Sum restaurant some more well deserved business!
So more notes from me, lol
EDITED on 27th Aug, adding note No. 8.
1. Making sure you're using a clean container:
When making the mother and the starter dough, make sure the container is clean and free of oil. We don't want too much "extra" bacterial in the fermentation process. Also, before you knead the dough together, remember to wash your hands thoroughly with hand soap/detergent. Knead with a wet hand is OK.
2. Using stand mixer:
You can totally use stand mixer, in fact it'll save you a lot of the trouble avoiding sticking to your hand, and it'll easier if you're making a bigger batch. Just follow the steps, and mix the stuff in on speed one. Be careful not to overmix.
3. The texture of the dough:
This is a relatively soft and sticky dough. It'll be quite sticky at the time after the dough is form with the dry ingredients and before adding the lard. If you'e familiar with bread making, I'd say it's similar to a 60-65% hydration dough.
4. Remember to use a damp towel to cover the bowl when resting the finished dough. Wet it again at the half hour mark if your towel is getting dry. Because you really want to keep it soft and moist.
5. Using the sound to check alkalinity:
Experienced Chinese pastry chefs can judge the alkalinity by the sound of the dough.
Basic idea:
if the dough's sound is dull and heavy, then it's on the alkaline side (not enough fermentation thus not enough small wholes);
if the dough sounds too much like a smacking (we describe the sound as "pia"), then it's still on the acidic side (too heavy on fermentation and too airy inside).
So the sound should be somewhere in between.
Of course, smelling it at the earlier stage before adding dry ingredients would be more helpful, lol.
6. Beaware of the bun breaking:
While we want to bun to crack, we don't want it to break along the pleats. One possible culprit here would be the filling. If the filling gets into your pleats, it may cause breaking along the pleats or leaking. So if you're not too confident in wrapping baozi, try to switch the ratio of the filling to half char siu and half sauce, this will make it less "saucy" and makes it easier to wrap and ensure the pleats are intact.
7. Making and storing a bigger batch:
We made a very small batch here, because we already have multiple testing batches lying in the fridge and freezer, lol.
Right, you can totally make a bigger batch. After steaming, you can stored the cooled down ones in ziplock bags or air-tight container and freezer them (I have a batch that's been freezing for 6 months, lol). They freeze really well. When you're about to eat them, just take them out directly from the freezer, put them in a steamer and steam on high heat for 12 minutes, then they'll be ready to serve.
8. About the ammonium bicarbonate smell
So right, the ammonium bicarbonate flavor is quite strong if you eat right after steaming. I'd recommend that after steaming, you let it sit for an hour or two and let any remaining ammonium bicarbonate gas evaporate and then steam it again for 8 minutes to heat it up before serving (and obviously you can also save them up and reheat it whenever you want). Resting after steaming is how some restaurants do in order to achieve a better taste (same idea of letting alkaline noodle rest after making it and thus getting rid of the alkaline taste and smell).
*IMPORTANT* : Our bottle of "Choufen" (the smelling powder/ammonium bicarbonate), is a mixture of ammonium bicarbonate *AND* sodium bicarbonate, but it doesn't give out the ratio. Some product you'd be using may be higher in ammonium bicarbonate content and giving the buns a stronger ammonia smell. For us, the buns would have a slight hint of ammonia, but it disappears after we let it sit for two hours and re-steam it.
I think the smell may have to do with the ammonium bicarbonate ratio. Also, for the stuff that we're using, the suggested ratio printed on the jar is 1-3% of the total weight of the flour (which the high end is way higher than the ratio called for if just using *pure* *ammonium* *bicarbonate* ).
You should refer to the label on the product you're using and see what is in it (pure ammonium bicarbonate or a mixture with other leavening agents) and what percentage it suggests.
If you're using *pure* ammonium bicarbonate, the percentage should weight 0.5%-1.5% of the starter dough, instead of the 2% "choufen (smelling powder)" that we called for in the recipe. In this case, you can use 1% *pure* ammonium bicarbonate and 1% baking soda (1% of the weight of the starter dough, i.e. 200 grams in this recipe), it should work similarly with "Choufen".
Chinese Cooking Demystified t
Chinese Cooking Demystified
Love these explanations! Thank you and Steph for doing them, Chris.
Now. Chris. A request ~ and a bit of "motherly" advice.
Stop self deprecating! There's never anything to apologize for! Things beyond your control ~ lighting in your kitchen, your voice, for goodness sake. Yes, saying your pronunciation of a second language could use improvement is ~sort of ok. But for goodness sake, so, so few people learn to speak a second language, let alone different dialects! You should be deeply proud!
But to say your English voice is "bad enough"? No, just no! It's yours. It's not harsh, whiny, too high pitched, too low, not loud enough, too loud~do you get the picture? We ALL hate the sound of our own voices. So take my word for it, please. It is absolutely no problem listening for 5, 10 or 15 minutes! Your timbre, enunciation and pronunciation are perfect. Nuff said. ☺
Old(ish) subscriber rant over. ☺
You are both doing a bang up job at this! I'm so proud of you. This is so obviously a labour of love and it's deeply appreciated.
Love
Jenn 💖 in Canada 🍁
@@thisissteph9834 you realise I am Correct and block instead. Interesting approach. I enjoyed how you mentioned the chef 除胁 from the CCTV show like he is a close mentor to you too.
@@randomstoragespace Well, really, if you're so good then do a video or recipe to prove it, share your great knowledge with the world, be a force of good. We need legit resources. I delete all your previous comments because it's annoying to see a jerk being mean to others. I'm done dealing with crazy attention whores that bark like a mad dog. And apparently, you even bothered to register a new account and come back to keep barking. Never mentioned Chen Xun as my mentor, I said I learned the importance of heat from him. Btw, you got his name's characters wrong. So guess you can't read Chinese?
I did it I finally did it, I made them!!!!
They’re amazing although so much work but totally worth it. The flavours were so perfect especially combined with the home made char siu recipe. Absolutely better than the frozen ones I buy, it’ll be hard to go back to them after the leftovers run out. I think the only thing that I needed to do differently would be cover with a lid and towel to get more intense steam.
I only trust chinese food recipes if the cook mixes with chop sticks. you guys are amazing. truly feels demystified.
It is really all in the chop sticks 😌
Wow! Thanks for showing us how it is made! The difficulty and lengthiness of making char siu baos are no joke! it just shows how much detail is required to perfect the art of Chinese cuisine. I’m really glad you’re also sharing and keeping this available for generations to come because I’m so scared that one day no one will continue to make these authentic beautiful dishes.
Another dish that I have taken for granted for decades. BBQ pork buns were the highlight of mum taking us as kids to yum cha / dim sum 30 years ago. I'll never make this at home, but I now have a profound respect for Char Siu Bao. Thank you for making these videos!
I really love watching your channel! Although there are so many complaints, but this is the real way how to cook authentic chinese dishes. Seriously, if people don't like it, they should just buy from store. I fully support the hardwork you put in making the authentic way. thank you! i will definitely try this one
Cheers! So right, you can tag us on Instagram if you made this~
Of all the videos I've watch in the past, I must give you full props on the ingredients and spot on methods! My father was a Dim Sum Sifu in Guangzhou and showed me how to make this once, But over the years, I have forgotten some of the ingredients and you brought it all back. Special thanks for such an awesome legit video!
Watching from California! Thank you both so much for this incredible recipe. I look forward to perfecting it this coming year for my boyfriend who's Cantonese :)
I have been looking for chinese steam bun recipe and watch so many videos
This is first video that use natural yeast dough I will try this recipe for sure
This video teach more detail
Very clear
Thank you to Steph for sharing the recipe and all details and explanation
Thank you Chris to speak english very clear and not too fast not too slow just perfect
Like teacher like professional
I tried a few of your recipes and they always come out great! I tried the char siu bao after watching the video 30 times, and it was a success. Fluffy and cracked like at the restaurant. I tried using 3g or 4g (the brand i use is Pure bought on amz), the 4g def gives an ammonium smell but leftovers heated the next day didn’t have any smell. Didn’t notice any difference in fluffiness/cracking. Keep on posting more ‘technical’ cooking videos, thank you!
Did you use 4g or did you add the 2g of baking soda mentioned, I also bought the pure brand but not sure which route to take
I added 1g baking soda to the 3g ammonium, and also tried just the 4g ammonium by itself. The mix is better than just the ammonium by itself!
I’m Cantonese and I’ve had these since I was a little kid. They’re still my favorite food to this day.
That is a whole lot of work and like Steph said, "a bit on the complex side." I'll continue to get my bao at restaurants, but my respect to Chris and Steph for even attempting this.
(Side note: that is the largest container of cream of tartar I've ever seen, and probably enough cream of tartar to last an entire Chinese village for an entire century. I shudder to think what a container that large would cost in the US, considering that a standard spice jar-sized container is $3.)
lol we live next to the wholesale market for the district, kinda by design. The selection's incredible, but for some products they only have large restaurant-sized containers. That container was about 40 CNY (5-6 bucks US), so not that bad. But yeah, we'll never ever be able to finish it.
But yeah, Steph's been working on this for ages. Tough recipe, lots of variables, and there's so much nonsense out there (in Chinese, no less) that can throw you off course. Like, not using yeast was a big 'aha!' moment.
Me too.. I better buying in the the restaurant
Personally I have great respect for dim sum because of the amount effort and complexity in making them to just a satisfactory standard.
Made these today for the first time (roast pork was purchased in Quincy, MA and had 5+ year old sourdough on hand but all else was from scratch following the recipe precisely). We were able to purchase all ingredients including the choufan and soy paste! The bao turned out wonderfully well - except for the very strong ammonia smell due to the choufen. Next time, i will try 2gm of that powder and hope the smell is not so bad. I also adjusted the filling in each bun to have more meat (25 grams of filling per bao, utilizing a total of 120g of char siu - since we felt that the recipe as given was somehow light in the meat for each bun). Thank you so much for a fantastic recipe. Looking forward to your northern mantou recipe.
If the ammonia smell is strong after the first steam, you can freeze the steamed baos in the freezer in ziplock bag for a couple days, this would help with the smell a lot. Ours doesn't have the smell after the sitting. Some people report failure of the dough, but seeing you had success with an old sourdough, now I'm guessing the failures may be caused by young and not strong enough starter.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Hello again! So far, I have made your recipe about 5 times. Being a sourdough fanatic, I have tried tweaking the recipe in several areas. Just wanted to say first that this recipe makes the very best char siu bao I have tasted - including in very good restaurants. The one thing I wanted to let you know is that the buns do stand up to extended steaming (to about 12-15 minutes depending on how well the steam is trapped inside the steamers). I have found that wrapping the connecting area between the water and the lowest steaming tray will greatly help retain the steam inside the trays. Adding a few more minutes to the initial steaming also greatly reduces the smell of ammonia. My research of that particular chemical indicates that the ammonia smell dissipates with longer heating - thus making sure the heat stays inside the steaming units and increasing the cooking time helps to remove that strong smell. Lastly, I have also found that reducing the amount of choufen slightly, will work to puff up the final product and yet lessen the ammonia. Hope this is helpful to everyone who is trying to make this wonderful recipe. Thank you for your hard work and sharing.
I might have to work my way up to this recipe, but I am elated that you created such an in-depth video on the subject. Thank you.
The way you make these with all the time and effort is the true definition of cooking with love!!
When she opened the steamer and I saw all those fluffy baos...I squealed with joy! What else can I use the dough for?
I love Char Siu Bao. Chinese food is amazing.
All the work you guys do is bang on. You're incredibly thorough and true to the original processes and recipes. But when are you doing Har Gow???
You two are an absolute powerhouse. Your videos are incredibly detailed and well thought-out. Thanks for the vinegar tip on how to keep the bread white. I always wondered why my family's 饅頭 never look quite like the ones in restaurants and bakeries.
Hope to use the 叉燒 filling recipe in conjunction with the 菠蘿包 recipe to try replicating the 叉燒包 from Tim Ho Wan!
Haha, the baked char siu bao at Tim Ho Wan uses a different topping than the one we showed in our bolobao video. We'll definitely make the baked version some day~
@@thisissteph9834 I'm looking forward to it!!
Amazing. So detailed and consistent through out. You guys love your videos!
much more complicated than I expected but they are so worth it
nice work
Wow, I salute you both for such a detailed video plus all the update information and explanation. Really appreciate all your work. Thanks!
Cheers and thanks~~
Wow so many steps to this recipe, not to mention all the different ingredients and prep work.
My friend chef used to do this some three decades back🤭! I hepled him with the wrapping and i also remember him using the old chinese weighing scale like the ones you hold by hand doing some balancing act!😊 Thanx for sharing the ingredients!🥰
as someone who has worked in a Chinese dimsum kitchen on the dimsum section I can say this is a really good vid!
Your char siu bao look legit! Even down to the square paper and how they crack open. I am learning so much from your videos. Also, that is the biggest container of Cream of Tartar I have even seen.
Yeah these were a lot of blood sweat & tears to figure out lol. Most Dim Sum restaurants nowadays understandably buy premade 'Char Siu Bao leavening' mixes that they can use with their sourdough. We kept on having an issue with having ours overly alkaline, so I recommended Cream of Tartar (how Western cooking would deal with the problem). Then as it turns out, some of the leavening mixes actually do contain Cream of Tartar!
This is definitely the definitive video on the preparation of this Chinese Yum Cha favourite. Many thanks for your extremely thorough presentation. Others pale by comparison.
Cheers~ We did hope to "demystify" how the dough is made since there's like no information online about the two starters.
John Robins 111：
Your video is really god sent. I had wasted a ton load of ingredients trying to make char siu pau. I gave up, after my fifth try, produced buns that were spotted brown after steaming and not to mention dense and doughy as usual, as well. Any idea as to why the dough became dotted with brown spots after steaming? Does using Crisco or any type of vegetable shortening affect the dough? Indeed, most recipes found on UA-cam or online are way too simplistic in my opinion. The results always taste bread like. Bread dough that has been steamed instead of baked. Never ever did I get fluffy, cotton soft textured buns like those sold at dim sum restaurants. From the looks of that steamed pau of yours, I am sure I have found a recipe worthy of an attempt again. Thank you for giving me hope again.
I hear you sister, lol. I had the same problem and I almost gave up on char siu bao too. But with enough obsessiveness and getting tired of the bullshit floating out there online, I dig deeper on old Cantonese cookbooks and interviews on old dim sum chefs.
So long story short, the brown spots means the dough is overly alkaline and the ammonium bicarbonate is not mixed well enough. I don't know if you used a sourdough starter, the sourdough would help balance. But sometimes it's not enough, that's why I added creme of tartar to add acidity and ensure the consistent air is being created in the process.
If you want to make sure you get it white, you can mix in 1/8 tsp of white rice vinegar in the dough besides adding vinegar in the steaming water.
You can use shorterning to help with the color too, but I prefer the taste of lard.
For the texture, cake flour is one of the keys. Don't use AP, thay may be the cause of the bread like texture.
You can tag us on instagram with result of this recipe, we may be able to help you trouble shooting if it's not there (so many variables in the process so I can't guarantee that you'll be there 100% the first time you make it :) ). But I do hope you give a try and success!
First off, it's almost impossible to get the fluffy and snowy white homemade Pao at home because of the addictive and the processed flour used by restaurants. For the brown spots though, did you let the buns cool for few minutes after steaming before lifting the cover? After the heat is turn off, let the buns rest for about 5-10 minutes before uncovering the lid.
+Jocelyn Chong ua-cam.com/video/WHrn_pHW2so/v-deo.htmlm2s
Joking aside... to reiterate, it has nothing to do with the flour... but rather the balance between the alkalinity and the acid in the dough :) Yellow spots = an overly alkaline dough.
@@thisissteph9834 Once I mistakingly using baking soda and my entire batch turn brownish yellow after steaming. 😂
I wanted to tell you guys that because of you, I ventured in to my first Asian supermarket. And now it's my happy place.
So what's your favorite stuff from Asian supermarket so far?
Steph - Chinese Cooking Demystified Sweet potato noodles, shrimp crisps, Szechuan peppercorns. I made chili oil!
Steph - Chinese Cooking Demystified Oh, and black rice!
Haha, black rice is my favorite in mixed grain rice. Btw, have you ever tried stir frying sweet potato noodles? They have this dish in Korea. I love that texture~
I got the idea for potato noodles from mu shu pork video (i think) where you talk about spring pancakes and what's tasty in them but don't actually make the pancakes. You show a stir fry with potato noodles and cabbage. But then I saw the sweet potato ones and wanted to try them, now I'm hooked! Question about something else I picked up though. I got these tiny dried shrimp that I've been using to flavor soup and oil and such, but they seem kind of inedible. Are you supposed to eat the tiny shrimp? I'd say they're about as big as my thumbnail. They make my broth taste great, but I'm a little put off by the idea of eating un-deveined shrimp.
So much detail on both theory and action, same as usual and topped it up with a little bit of history too. This makes it look easy but it's hard to perfect. Glorious video. Love it. Congrats to both of you nice people for sharing.
Cheers and thx~ :)
This is one of the first Chinese eating experiences I had. Still a favorite.
thank you for all the great content. really enjoy all your videos.
These comments are some of the most wholesome and helpful I’ve ever come across!!!
Thanks for the recipe! It is a very good recipe. I used western sourdough starter with success and didn’t use cream of tartar. I tried the recipe twice. Just as you said the result might not be great at the first go. The result of the first time was kinda dry and didn’t puff up so much. So I made some changes: 1. Slightly increased the amount of ammonium carbonate. 2. I substitute some part of cake flour with wheat starch. 3. Added some egg white. 4. Doubled the amount of lard. The result was great, not yellow at all, exactly like what you have in a dim sum restaurant.
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Cool! Thanks for sharing the notes, this is such a difficult thing to make that feedback and notes are always helpful for others that're having troubles.
This channel is the only one that gets it right….for all their recipes
I'm a simple woman. I see bao, I like.
Thank you for showing how to make the mother dough, what do you do with the left over?
Hello there,first of all,I thankful when I found your recipy. I'm done many recipy with yeast,ofcouse the buns turned out dry and not taste like real Chinese bun. Your generosity sharing this recipy, I THANKYOU from my heart, I am going give it a try or even have to do it twice or more, I still want to make homemade buns for my family. Wish me luck and I keep watching your next videos.
Made them exactly as you showed all the way, scallion oil - awesome also added it to your congee with a soy, downed the whole pot. Char siu - Deelish! The bao had the right consistency but it still had the ammonium bicarbonate pungency to a still edible but not too pleasant degree I steamed for around 12 minutes, I'll try backing off a bit on the Ammonium bicarbonate and steaming a bit longer next time.
So right, the ammonium bicarbonate flavor is quite strong, you can try to dial it down a bit, but not too much as it's the key for the cracks. Another thing is that after steaming, you can let it sit for an hour or two and let the smell evaporate and then steam it again for 8 minutes before serving. That's how some restaurants do in order to achieve a better taste (same idea of letting alkaline noodle rest after making it and thus getting rid of the alkaline taste and smell).
These are a serious fav of mine and always wanted to know how they were made, think these are above my cook capability, but again luved the video as always!!!
I'm late to the party, but thank you, thank you, thank you for this recipe! Yes, I will make it, someday, when I manage to get enough courage. But even if it's not a dish to be whipped up on a busy Wednesday evening, it is soooo nice to see the whole thing done properly! I've had real Char Sui Bao and I've had the cake-like cheap stuff, and there is no contest: the cheap version has the wrong texture, the wrong taste, and you (or at least I) end up eating just the the filling and throwing out most of the tasteless bun. Properly made, everything comes together to be exactly right, and the dough's extremely light but still firm texture and its slightly sour taste complement the smooth filling perfectly, and instead of feeling cheated as if you just ate a Twinkie, your mouth is left happy, you have a huge smile of satisfaction, and a nice warm belly.
5:06 I could listen to that sound all day
Hello, thank you for sharing this recipe. I would like to ask for the reactivating of Mother Dough, the addition of 100 flour and 50 water is regardless of the amount of mother dough needed to be activated?
For example if I have 50g or 150g of mother dough from the freezer to be activated, do I use the same 100g flour and 50g water addition to both, if not what is the % to add actually?
Also, the activation of mother dough schedule ends in the am to proceed to making of sourdough, which means one would end up making the Char Siu baos in the evening? Unless I have miss a step somewhere?
Thank you so much for you help on this 😅🙏🏻
Nice cooking 👍 you make amazing cha chiu bao. 😊
Thank you very much for your clear explanation and recipes. I made the bbq buns several time before, but it turned out did not look right. Your bbq buns look perfect and I will try it make it later.
Thank you for sharing this! You put a lot of effort into this and it does make me appreciate what's goes into making the (not so) humble char Siu bao. It's worth a go!!!! I'm game! Thanks
I knew your instructions are the best! Thank you!
Wow it's a lot of time to prepare the mother DOUGH RECIPE..Pau looks smiling at you ALSO patience must be there too
As someone that only speaks English, I want to thank you and mildly curse you for making me want to get my passport.
Maybe some day I can just disappear for a year and take in the sights of sichuan, then maybe Laos, Thailand, Singapore, and a few other regions.
Really, thanks for the inspiration. My kitchen is not the same anymore.
It's always nice to see comments like this:) We love exploring China and Asia, and it's always nice being able to show people what it's like (food-wise) here~
My god this is complicated. I loved every minute of it! Thank you!
It's complicate, but now with the starter lying around, it feels like I can just make it for breakfirst in the morning, lol.
I love this recipe! It looks complicated but once i try it and see the end result I'm sure I'm gonna be hosting yam cha more often 😍 I've tried your sui mai recipe and it's incredible! Thanks always.
Jay Oppie where you found the recipes ? I cant found it 😭😭
Thank so much for sharing, looks indeed yummmy hense similar to those serve in dim sum restaurant
Best channel on UA-cam.
Really great work you guys!!
Makes one desire these chefs live a thousand years so they can spam us more precious recipes XD. I love Bao!
THis channel is so good; recipes are explained in great detail!
Very nice the work done
Thumbs up on this video. I've been searching for years now on a 'real' (proper) steamed bun recipe/technique, and pretty much all of the OTHER online instructions either end up with results that are absolutely not the real excellent ones shown in this video (ie. the proper chinese chinese dim sum restaurant ones!), or just some kind of smooth skin bun that is not fluffy at all. This video is the only one that appears to give the proper and full run-down and secrets on how to make the dim-sum restaurant (proper) steamed bun. Thanks very much for presenting this video. I will try it. I believe finally we have the real deal here. I had - for a very very very very long time - been interested in how they actually make the steamed buns exactly like the ones shown in the video. I had never succeeded --- the reason is --- those other so-called steam-bun recipes turn out to be totally simplistic, and missing all these critical steps (which those so-called instructors or home-cooks probably had absolutely no idea about). But - also - there are many published cook-books that also teach simplistic misleading steps --- like mix flour/water/yeast/baking powder etc. Totally misleading. So, once again - hats off to the maker of this video clip - I genuinely thank you for teaching us the proper way.
Cheers, appreciate it! Just a heads up that it *is* a tough recipe, took a while to get down and people's results have been roughly 50/50 - some people've been happily able to recreate with success, others have generally had issues with their starter or the ammonium bicarbonate they're using. So if you don't happen to get it on the first try, let us know and we'd be happy to help troubleshoot :)
I think the big problem with Char Siu Bao is that it's very much it's own thing - they branched off from other Baozi quite a while ago. So I think maybe some English language writers might know how to make Baozi, throw their hands up in the air (as it isn't easy), toss some Char Siu in a Baozi and call it 'Char Siu Bao'.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Thanks for the heads-up! Very good point you made too about the Baozi!!!!! I think you hit that one right on the head! I believe you're right about it. You certainly covered all bases with this topic. That's why I'm extremely impressed about all this. I will remember this.....about what you mentioned. Thanks again! Best regards.
Thanks for another great video. I have huge respect for the both of you for going into the depth and explaining why everything is done. May I ask where you (narrator) are from? Your accent/dialect is fantastic!
Just made these using lorann's baker's ammonia and the recommended 2g/2g baking soda. I also subbed potato starch for the mung bean flour. I accidentally omitted the lard in the final dough, but the texture seemed okay without it.
However, the ammonia smell still overwhelmed me to the point of not being able to enjoy them, even when cut. We steamed for 10 minutes, but perhaps we needed more time, as some of the bottoms of the baozi still had some soft/wet spots where they were thinner. That was a bummer, but thankfully I made 1kg of char siu for this, so our freezer is stocked for additional iterations.
I will happily report that the potato starch seemed to be a good call for the bao sauce, though. Good overall consistency especially considering I also used lard as my scallion fat.
How come 8 buns go in the steaming tray and 10 buns came out
finally someone said this, I also found the bao that entered the steamer was different from the one that came out. The folds of the buns are also different.
Great recipe
Nhìn rất hấp dẫn
i died at the "ammonia bicarbonate is basically baking soda on steroids" LMAAAAAAAAO
Ah ha!!!!! The secret of the dough! Thanks so much for sharing!
Your videos are at another level. Made another batch today but with limited resources, no ammonium bicarb and very low protein flour. The buns were cracked wide open. Do you reckon there's a relationship between flour protein/gluten formation and the amount of cracking? I'm imagining tearing a cake vs tearing bread. Thanks for all the content.
Great video. Thank you for making it.
You guys rock! Dim Sum might be my favorite food on the planet.
Any plans to make Lo Mai Gai?
Lo Mai Gai is on the list. It should be coming out in the coming monthes. We wanna pace out the dim sum recipes though, something like one in a month or two. And it also takes a lot of time to test~ Like this one took more than half a year, lol.
Awesome!! Thanks for the reply.
Wowzers, that's amazing. Thanks for all the hard work. This is really exciting and humbling to see how this amazing food is made on a high level.
@@thisissteph9834 The work you put into researching this recipe shows! Just made 10 char siu bao using your recipe, and although there is a strong ammonia aroma to them, they will NOT last the night..... I WILL finish them.....Thank you so much!
Is mung bean flour made from whole mung beans or is it mung bean starch like cornflour in the UK?
I made it, the dough came out perfect just like at Dim Sum place. I need to practice more on the folding technique. Thank you Chris and Steffanie :)
I wish i can attach the picture of my baoz
Oh cool! You can tag us on instagrame~ same name as the channel
包子開得漂亮又正宗。請問用 mother dough/starter的作用是加風味嗎？ 可以直接用酵母嗎？
Thanks~ 因为叉烧包“开花”的效果需要用到臭粉，但臭粉的碱性比较强，需要老面的酸性去平衡。如果直接用酵母，那包子会发黄，而且无法平衡臭粉的味道。最好用活性比较大的老面，不然加了臭粉也容易发黄~
Chinese Cooking Demystified 明白了，謝謝回覆
Thank you very much for the knowledge!! Fascinating. CSB's my favourite. NOW I know how it's made. It'll be a whole new different experience for me next time i eat one :).
hey chinese cooking demystified, 孔子here. I never had 叉烧包 back in the days. it looks super delicious, but i cant open the written recipe from reddit. can i just go with the ingredients from the video?
Yeah when I have a spare 3 days to make some Bao dough... This will be my go to recipe
Can i make half of the recipes.. in order to give it a 1st try ?
wow!!!!!! i didnt realise making bao was this complicated....thankq for sharing!
Haha Char Siu Bao's sorta its own special thing... you can find a more 'general purpose' Baozi here: ua-cam.com/video/lGr3H7XVmng/v-deo.html
what should you do with the starter dough if you want to steam for dinner later in the day? Put it in the fridge, make the final dough and rest that in the fridge or just steam and resteam later?
I don't know if I'll ever make these. I'll probably just stick to basic baozi.
Nevertheless, I find this video fun to watch because of all the components that make up this dish.
Thank you guys for this video!
Thanks so much for this detailed recipe. Since you recommend 2 g of ammonium bicarbonate and 2 g of baking soda, could I go ahead and just use all baking soda? I’d like to avoid spending money on something I will only use 2 grams of.
Thanks for sharing this recipe. How long do you let the dough to proof before steaming?
Curious: why the need to add cream of tartar? I know dim sum chef don't use cream of tartar in the bao dough so may you tell me why do you use it and can I omit it?
Wow.. That's what I've looked for on the whole internet. I've tried many recipes but failed continuously. I've found some tips in your guide and relised some hope in my next try :)))
Btw, how long could we keep the mother dough for the next use? And how to keep it? Can we continue to feed it (40 g flour + 20g water) every day?
It can stay in the fridge for a week, after that you'll want to freeze it. You can follow the baker's schedule on how to reactivate it after taking it out of the fridge. If you freeze it, thaw overnight in the fridge, then take it out and reactivate~
You can continue to feed it, but it'll end up getting really big, lol.
Hi! As for the mung bean flour, I see two kinds here, one is raw and the other is baked. Which one is in this recipe, or is okay to use either?
Hi, I’m trying to prepare the scallion oil, is it ok to use other type of oil instead of peanut oil? I have olive , avocado or canola at home?
Is it that critical. Thank you, I enjoyed your videos very much and I would like you know that I was successful on making your Baozi. Thanks again.
it's fine. you just have to add a bell pepper and cilantro.
Never tried other oil, olive oil is bitter in my opinion. But you can try using sesame oil
Love your english video instructions!
I finally had success today! It is the third time I do this recipe and I follow everything to the T. Thank you so much.
One question, can the dough be refrigerated and be used later?
Congrats! You're the very few ones that got it, haha. Never tried refrigerated the dough, sorry can't help with that. I'd venture to say the mother may be able to keep in the fridge? But you'll need to "wake it up" by bring it to temp and maybe even feed it once at least.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified I did it with the amended amount of ammonia. Bicarbonate and baking soda. I can still detect the ammonia smell. Someone suggested baking it twice and even when I idd tat, I can’t get rid of the smell.
I mean I did it with 2 g ammonia and 2 g baking soda and still got the ammonia smell.
Hello, watched a Chinese dim sum restaurant make these in China. They used "alkaline" water in the doufh, what would that be in your recipe? That had ammonium, baking powder, and the water was to balance out the sourness.
Great video as always, could this be done with “regular” sourdough instead?
On a sidenote i have another question:
Is salt different in China, as if less strong or are the grains bigger? Not trying to insult you or anything, but i have already tried some recipes from your channel and i always cut some of the salt. The dishes still end great and even sometimes a little bit too salty.
I ask this mainly because i started cooking “traditional” chinese food fist via websites and some of the recipes had the same problem, i followed some step by step and the result was inedible.
The one i use is not that fine, somewhat between table salt and sea salt.
Hmm... interesting question. First off, what brand of salt are you using? Maybe we could pick up a bag on Taobao and do a little taste test.
That said, I'd guess that soy sauce and/or chili bean paste (i.e. Pixian Doubanjiang) brands might be more to blame. If you get low quality of either one of those two things, they're more 'sharp/salty' and less umami. Which brands are you using for those? When we test these recipes, we use "Yipinxian" soy sauce and "Juanchengpai" chili bean paste... both of which are pretty good (the best mass produced brands in our opinion) and I could find at the Chinese supermarket in Philly back in the USA.
Of course, it might also just be different taste buds working differently. Neither me nor Steph are the sort that are particularly sensitive to salinity - e.g. 'balanced' for me is 'too salty' for my Mom.
Re the sourdough you got, what's the water:flour ratio? If it's 1:2 you're good to go and you can jump in at 1:09 :)
Ah well, yeah I guess I'll trust ya on the salt then :) Perhaps next time you're in a Chinese supermarket, pick up some salt there and see if you can tell a difference ('Sichuan salt', if available).
Re the chili bean paste, I personally dislike Lee Kum Kee. Fuschia Dumlop was talking to one of her chef friends about it, and this was his opinion (which I'd agree with):
"Chef Zhang points out that [Lee Kum Kee Chili Bean Paste] is made by a Cantonese rather than a Sichuanese company, and contains various non-traditional additives, such as sugar, garlic, modified cornstarch, lactic acid and two flavour enhancers. (It’s hard to understand why additives are required in a product that traditionally keeps well and is intensely flavoured…) He didn’t feel this was really suitable for creating an authentic Sichuanese ‘homestyle flavour’ （家常味型）, because the colour and the flavour were wrong. (Sichuanese chilli bean pastes, once matured, have a deep, almost-purplish red colour.)"
We use Juanchengpai when testing, which is generally in our opinion the best of the mass produced stuff (there's a Sichuan shop at our local market that sells some awesome artisinal stuff, we've gotta like force ourselves not to use it for the sake of replication haha). I could find it at the Chinese supermarket near my parent's place in Philly, or it's also (super over-priced) on Amazon:
www.amazon.com/Sichuan-Pixian-Boad-Paste-Chili/dp/B01M31VHNZ/
Chinese Cooking Demystified That’s a great idea, the salt one, would you like me to share the results with you?
I’ll see if i can find the brand you mentioned since amazon isn’t available in my town :(
In case i can’t find it, would i become persona non grata in sichuan if i use lee kum kee? 😩
Haha use what you got! Just try to opt for something nicer if you have a choice. Like, where we live in Shenzhen fresh western herbs cost a damn fortune, so when I'm cooking Western food I use dried. Is it a perfect solution? Nope. Can you still whip up some tasty food? Absolutely.
Or if you're up for a project, ChinaSichuanFood (great blog btw, best English language blog for Chinese food by far) has a recipe for how to ferment it yourself: www.chinasichuanfood.com/doubanjiang/
Chinese Cooking Demystified heh, that’s like my main source for chinese cooking :)
But sure, sometimes it is more about the technique and process than about the ingredients, i’ll see what i can do
Is it important to have the mung bean powder in the char siu sauce?
I like this recipe and really want to make char siu bao but I can’t hear well so I miss many word, can you please put subtitle on this. Thank you
is there a reason why cake flour is not used for mother dough?
doesnt need 酵母?how long the mother dough can save
Nope! Yeast'll actually give a really different texture here - think something akin to a leavened street breakfast Baozi. Took a while going down that road before realizing the dead end.
If you keep on feeding your mother dough, it can last basically indefinitely. There's a restaurant in North Point that's famously kept their mother dough since the 1960s.
Wowie wow! Fantastic stuff. Thank you.
How many grams of char siu bao sauce does this recipe make? I want to scale it up for a large batch of char siu.
I doubled the recipe and my yield was about 450 grams of char siu bao sauce. (Had to sub garbonzo bean flour for mong bean).
Per the ratio given each gram of pork gets 3.85 grams of sauce. So from the original recipe the amount of char siu the sauce can mix with is approximately 58 grams.
If using 15 grams of filling this should result in about 11 buns as a final product.
@@deskysurfer thanks for going out of your way to give information back to the community
Very authentic. Good method if running a business but to satisfy the occasional char siu bao craving, I think I will just use the shop pre-mix bao flour. But thanks for sharing your recipe and method. I love watching food made authentically and you've done it incredibly well.
Pre-mix is usually great - provides excellent results. But the point of this video is to offer a way to make real hong kong char siew bao without taking the 'easy way out' or the uneducated way out.
Hi, I have tried to make this recipe twice but both failed at the starter dough stage. I followed the baker's schedule, by the 3rd day, the mother dough do smell a bit sour, but do not have any bubble and the consistency is not as loose as your video (i.e when I tilt the bow, the mother dough doesn't flow, although the dough do look moist and elastic when I scoop it out). I proceed to make the starter dough, and the next day, the starter dough do not double in size. I even let the starter dough sit for another 24 hours and it do not double in size either (but the sour smell gets stronger). Do you have any suggestion how I can trouble shoot or proceed? My all purpose flour is less than a year old. Room temperature is between 82-88F, humidity is around 50%. Thanks!
Hmm, I think the humidity is too low, the ideal would be at least 80% (here in southern China is basically always higher than 80%). Maybe try using a more tightly closed container and longer time (more than 4 days, make it to even 6 days, I'll do 5-6 days in winter) for the mother dough. Also cover a big damp towel around the container to create a more humid environment. I think climate really make s difference, our viewers from Hong Kong and Singapore have no problem recreating it. We can't see all UA-cam comments, you can tag us on Instagram (same name as the channel), it'll be easier to see the message.
@@thisissteph9834 Thanks Steph! I will give it another try and let the mother dough ferment longer. During my second try, I actually exhale a puff of air into the container before closing the saran wrap thinking the moist air would trap in the container and increase humidity. That didn't work either, ha ha. But I think the moist towel drape on top of the container make sense. If that doesn't work, I may just stick the container in a big Rubbermaid container filled with water to create a 90+% humid environment in my garage. By the way, I'm in South Florida, you would think it will be humid enough.
For the Starter Dough, do you use 75g or 80g of water? The recipe said 80g, but I think you said 75g. I like to make these baos, but i don't want to mess up. Please let me know. Thank you!
This is crazy amount of effort well done
can you use rice flour for this? i was looking for baozi flour, no luck but maybe i should have gone to the asian market