Hey guys, a few notes: 1. The first time we ever called for Laomian it was in our old Char Siu Bao recipe… and while there’s a number of things about that recipe that we’re still proud of, to be completely honest looking back our laomian worked there practically by dumb luck. It was the middle of the Guangdong summer, muggy and hot… I think there’s a reason why the only people that’ve ever reported success with that recipe seem to live in Singapore. 2. Spores on the laozao: if you see grey or black color spores on top of the fermented rice, it’s ok, that’s from rhizopus and it means your wine is active, just scrape it off and use the rest of the rice. If you see other color spores on the rice, such red, orange, or green, then it means it’s contaminated by other harmful bacteria and you’ll need to toss it. 3. How to store your laozao? Once the rice has got to its optimal fermentation stage, usually 24-48 hrs later, transfer it to a clean jar, cover, and keep in the fridge. It’ll continue to ferment slowly and the rice will break down, the laozao will turn thicker and even sweeter over time. Or, if you want like to use laozao as a dessert component with its sticky rice grains, you can steam the rice wine once it’s done (i.e. liquid’s coming out), and store it in a clean jar. This way, it won’t keep on fermenting and the rice texture will remain its chew. 4. Can you use bottled laozao from supermarket? No. The bottled one sold at supermarkets are pasteurized, i.e., not active in other words. The rice wine would keep on fermenting once 5. For the starter's initial feeding schedule: feed it 24 hours after the initial mixing, discard 40g of the starter and feed it again with 15g water and 30g flour. Repeat it 24 hours later, keep on feeding it for at least 3-4 days until the start can rise at least double its size within 6-8 hours (ambient temperature around 26-30C), then it’s ready to use. It may take longer if your climate is colder, so be patient and judge by its rise. Once the starter is live and active, you can maintain it just like a western sourdough by either feeding it daily, or keep in the fridge and reviving it once every one or two weeks (or to your own schedule). I found this kind of starter is so strong that I only need to feed it once a month if it stays in the fridge. Feel free to adjust the flour and water quantity according to you baozi/bread making habit, if you like to use more starter to make a bigger dough, you can maintain a bigger, like 50g or even 100g, starter. 6. Note that the amount of flour given in the video is 300g, which is 150g flour for each type of mantou. Except for the baking soda, all the other ratio is calculated based on the weight of flour as a baker’s percentage. (Just in case some of you’re new to the concept: a baker's percentage is a dough formula expressed where the total weight of the flour represents 100%, and all other ingredients are compared by weight to that total and expressed as a percentage.) 7. We made two kinds of mantou in the video, alternatively, you can use the whole fermented dough to make one kind of mantou. Here’re two baker’s percentages for your reference: Standard mantou: AP flour 100% Starter 15% Water 47% (initial mixing) Salt 1% Sugar 3% Baking soda *0.6% to the weight of fermented dough* Water for baking soda mixture 3% Flowering mantou: AP flour 100% Starter 15% Water 47% (initial mixing) Salt 1% Sugar 20%-25% Baking soda *0.6% to the weight of fermented dough* Water for baking soda mixture 3% (to be cont')
8. The go to ratio for Chinese bao dough is 50% hydration (50% water to 100% flour), which for 300g flour in the video it should be 150g water. But we’re leaving 10g water out for the alkaline solution that’s added in the final mixing, that’s why the initial water quantity is 140g. 9. Starter ratio. How much starter to use depends on your climate and schedule. We used 15% in the video. Use more starter if you want a quicker ferment or weather is cooler. The general range for this style of baos/buns is 5%-30%. 10. Mantou types: The non-sweet one we show in the video is one kind of northern style mantou, which is on the fluffy side. There’re other styles of course. And one other common type is called 戗面馒头 (qiang mian mantou), which would knead in quite some more flour (without adding water) after it’s done fermenting, creating a firmer texture with layers inside. Some northern mantou hardcore lovers swear by qiang mian style mantou because of its wheat fragrant and chewy texture. But for me, a Cantonese that grew up with pillowy dim sum baos, I still prefer it on the fluffier side and thus making this one in the video. As for the flowering one, it’s more common to make it with brown sugar for the depth in flavor and more nutrition for yeast. We used white granulated sugar for a more straight foward demonstration of the differences between the two mantous. But I would recommend you to go for dark brown sugar for a better taste. 11. Over ferment: if your dough is soggy, sticky, and smells a bit like alcohol, that means it’s over ferment. You can fix that by adding a touch more alkaline (increment by 0.2-0.3g), or adding more flour to make it less soft. On filming day, our flowering mantou’s dough is a bit over ferment after the long filming time, so I added about 1/4 tsp more baking soda to adjust the texture, basically either knead in alkaline or flour till it no longer sticks to your hand. 12. Proofing set-up. I used the steaming vessel as the proofing set up because it works in our kitchen and it’s usually how people in China would proof their baozi and mantou. If you’re used to making bread and you have your own preferred way of proofing, please feel free to use that. Just make sure that the surface doesn’t dry up. 13. When steaming, some people also heat up the water directly with the mantou sitting inside the pot. The mantou will have a further final rise during the time when water is heating up. However, if you’re making anything that requires rapid heat for cracking, such as flowering mantou, char siu bao, or fluffy steamed rice cake, you need to take them out of the pot and only put them in when water’s at a rapid boil. 14. Remember to put a dry cloth underneath the buns for the sweet flowering mantou. The dry cloth will absorb excess steam so that it doesn’t cook the mantou skin too fast and prevent it from cracking. 15. Water quantity when cooking sticky rice. When cooking sticky rice for this purpose with a rice cooker, the water quantity doesn’t have to be exact. All we need is a soft and cooked through sticky rice, err on more water than less if you’re not sure. 16. Utensil to use when handling cooked rice. We need out utensils to be absolutely free of oil. Personally, I like to use the Korean style metal chopstick when handling the rice and feeding the starter as they’re very easy to clean, unlike bamboo, wood, or plastic. 17. Herb mixture for the yeast ball. There’re so many kinds of herb mixture to make the ball, but one herb that’s always used is Persicaria hydropiper (辣蓼). 18. Fermenting in rice cooker. If you need to cook rice everyday with your rice cooker, then transfer the cooked sticky rice to a clean container when it’s hot, let it cool down, mix the yeast in and let it ferment. However, I do recommend using rice cooker if you don’t need to cook rice everyday as that outside holder helps to keep temperature warmer especially if you’re in a cooler climate. 19. Serving temperature for mantou and baozi. Unlike bread, Chinese style steamed buns/baos/maotou are usually best eaten hot, so enjoy it not too long after steaming and don’t wait for it to completely cooled down. There’re of course exceptions, the chewy sponge rice cake (米糕/发糕) that’s made fermenting with rice wine directly, it’s best eaten after it completely cools down for maximized chewiness. 20. Commercial yeast doughs usually wouldn’t work in traditional recipes that call for alkaline since commercial yeast dough is a lot less acidic (Source: bakerpedia.com/processes/ph/), and the texture is quite different as we discussed in our flaky fluffy Posu bao video (ua-cam.com/video/hR39C5Gmr1c/v-deo.html). 21. The original thesis discussing the LAB to yeast composition in sourdough: www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Italian-bakery-products-obtained-with-sour-dough-%3A-Ottogalli-Galli/2bb0bbb01ca9c423c82117fe97811c0546962d2c 22. One of the theses discussing the microorganism composition of Chinese fermented rice win: 闫华文. 2015. 甜酒曲中真菌多样性的研究及甜酒酿营养成分分析. Then this is a comparison of variables of fermented sweet rice wine: Study on the Best Brewing Technology of Sweet Ferment Rice (www.casb.org.cn/EN/10.11924/j.issn.1000-6850.casb2022-0204, also in Chinese unfortunately). 23. And finally, some fun excerpts from ancient books that I collected during the process of trying to find more info about how tf laomian is made, lol. Just for the entertainment of any Chinese readers out there: 关于“醴”字：【前汉·楚元王传】元王每置酒，常为穆生设醴。【注】师古曰：醴，甘酒也。少曲多米，一宿而熟。 关于“发面”：【《通典》，唐杜佑撰，801年，礼九，时享。】面起饼：齐永明九年正月，诏太庙四时祭，荐宣皇帝面起饼、鸭衮；孝皇后笋、鸭卵、脯酱、炙白肉；高皇帝荐肉脍、葅羹；昭皇后茗、粣、炙鱼：皆所嗜也。 关于用酒发面：【周礼注疏，郑司农, 114年前】酏食：又《醢人》羞豆之实，酏食糁食。《注》郑司农云：酏食，以酒酏为餠 关于开花馒头：【晋书．何曾传】厨膳滋味，过于王者。每燕见，不食太官所设，帝辄命取其食。蒸饼上不拆作十字不食。 关于酸浆和米酒发面：【齐民要术】饼法第八十二。 《食经》曰：作饼酵法：酸浆一斗，煎取七升；用粳米一升着浆，迟下火，如作粥。「六月时，溲一石面，着二升；冬时，着四升作。 作白饼法：面一石。白米七八升，作粥，以白酒六七升酵中，着火上。酒鱼眼沸，绞去滓，以和面。面起可作。 关于“包子”和“馒头”之名：古代“馒头”有馅，现代意义的馒头属于“实心馒头”，根据可搜索内容，该词应该最早出现于《儒林外史》。《王孝廉村学识同科 周蒙师暮年登上第》：“众人说他发的利市好，同斟一杯，送与周先生预贺，把周先生脸上羞的红一块，白一块，只得承谢众人，将酒接在手里。厨下捧出汤点来，一大盘实心馒头，一盘油煎的扛子火烧。众人道：“这点心是素的，先生用几个。”周进怕汤不洁净，讨了茶来吃点心。” 24.【UPDATE on 25th Aug】, thank you for commenter @jong pointing out purchasing yeast balls online: "Long time rice wine maker here in the States, Amazon is a 50/50 chance of getting a dead Shanghai Yeast Ball. You are far better going to a Chinese/Asian market and looking there. They typically will sell the bulk packs for nearly-less than 1 small pack from Amazon, and it has sat for most of it's life in a conditioned storage space inside the storefront."
I got excited when I saw rhizopus and yeast, and super excited when I saw lees!! I make sweet rice wine every summer (feels like a waste of perfect 30C weather not to) and I've been looking for ways to repurpose the lees! would love to see a lees version of this!!
Hi guys. Sodium Carbonate is actually super easy to get in the west: You bake your baking soda on something like a sheet tray to cause a chemical reaction that produces steam. I learned this because during lockdown, I explored making 面 from scratch because all the local noodle factories closed down. I still have a jar of the stuff, and would appreciate a note indicating the amount of sodium carbonate to use if using that.
Noticed a difference in as well when I started using a Filipino rice wine called tapay/tapuey as the starter. My breads were fluffier, a tad sweeter, but still has a bit of tangy funk that you'd come to expect from Western sourdough. And and my siopao (Filipino adaptation of baozi) had the signature craggly exploded look and pillowy texture, that I can only find in dim sum places.
Yeah, I believe the Filipino one is also powered by rhizopus, the only difference is that the starch is tapioca/cassava. So it's no suprise they'll have similar effects. And I do love bread made with laomian, so fragrant.
This is the reason why bread is called tinapay (literal translation is "rice wined" in English) in Tagalog. Historically rice wine was used to leaven breads and cakes. In the Visayas they still have traditional rice pancakes that are leavened with palm wine (tuba).
As a Chinese American man who cooks professionally but has never cooked in a Chinese kitchen, I cannot "smash that like button" enough in this video. I cannot describe how revealing this is to me and my mom, who loves to cook, but has been blind for years and hasn't been able to do research herself in Chinese as my reading & writing skills are horrible. For years I've been so frustrated by the lack of English language resource materials on REAL Chinese cuisine - as you pointef out, there's just so. much. bullsh*t. out there on the internet. Thank you so very much for this enlightening information! I hope you guys don't ever stop making content like this.
I love how much research you put into this. Chinese cooking has so much history and I would never have come to appreciate it so much without videos like yours.
9:07 -- Long time rice wine maker here in the States, Amazon is a 50/50 chance of getting a dead Shanghai Yeast Ball. You are far better going to a Chinese/Asian market and looking there. They typically will sell the bulk packs for nearly-less than 1 small pack from Amazon, and it has sat for most of it's life in a conditioned storage space inside the storefront.
You're a lifesaver omg I'm wanting to start making my own char siu bao and other baozi. Mainly because the people my family normally goes to get these, they are getting older and aren't making baozi and char siu bao as often anymore. To be fair, it is a labor of love but it's so worth it. The end result really makes it all worth it
So char siu bao's hard... If you use our recipe for it, which is (still) the only one that uses laomian I believe. You can either use this rice wine laomian or the sourdough laomian. Just make sure that you starter is very active. And you may not success the first couple time and you'll need to adjust it according to your own climate, flour, leavening agent, etc. However, just remember that it's about getting a acidic dough to balance the leavening agents, and one classic ratio of the dough is 70% slightly under fermented dough + 30% flour (remember to use cake flour for char siu bao).
@@ChineseCookingDemystified as a northerner who grew up in Singapore, I always used 'sourdough' to make char siu bao because...well, it's what I'm familiar with; a lot of online recipes use baking powder and I don't have as much intuition with chemically-leavened dough. I always thought I was doing this in a north/south fusion way that's not authentic to Cantonese cooking; it's good to know that I somehow stumbled upon the right idea!
You can make sodium carbonate by baking sodium bicarbonate for 30 minutes in the oven. Wear gloves when working with Sodium Carbonate. It's caustic like pH 11-13.
Does it get to 13 at any concentration? That is extremely basic. (11 is 10x more than 10, 12 is 10x more than 11, etc. So the difference between 11 and 13 is really an immense one.)
@@frosted3 Sodium carbonate solutions have a pH not directly dependent on the molarity since you have both carbonate and bicarbonate ions formed in the solution, and it also reacts with water to form carbonic acid (a weak acid), more hydroxide ions and free sodium ions. The pH of a saturated solution of sodium carbonate is around 11.7. Molarity isn’t the whole story when it comes to pH. Not to mention, the solubulity of sodium carbonate actually drops once you go above around 35°C. Reality is more involved than Chem 101.
Historically speaking, most leavening agents before the advent of chemical leavening were either eggs or yeast. More specifically, leftover liquid yeast from a variety of brewing and drink fermenting processes. The brewer/winemaker was a close friend of the baker in many cultures. It's little surprise that the radical for wine is hiding in that character.
Or Salt of hartshorn AKA ammonium carbonate, obtained by dry distillation of oil of hartshorn obtained from the destructive distillation of deer antlers.
Barm was the main leavening in European history after large-scale beer brewing took off, but that's really fairly recent. That's when 'sweet' bread (not sourdough) finally became the usual form. Maintaining a culture in dough through successive replenishment (sourdough) was the older practice.
Am I nerdy enough to make my own rice-wine-based starter and feed it diligently? No. Am I thoroughly in awe of the sheer level of obsessiveness, attention to detail, and remarkably clear explanation of a pretty complex process? Absolutely!
I really loved this video because of your journey of discovery for this recipe. I especially loved the point where you realized that the radical for wine was always there in the name and your epiphany on the importance of that one character in the name. I always love your videos, but this one was truly awesome.
Fermenting with alcohol reminds me of this steamed rice dish that catholic communities in Goa and Mangalore in India make called sannas. It uses toddy which is a quick fermenting sap from a palm tree. In catholic communities from Bombay, there’s another dish which is basically fried bread dough balls and they are called fugias which are also fermented with toddy. Of course, these days most people use yeast as toddy is difficult to find and is very time sensitive as it ferments really quickly after being tapped from the tree (a very dangerous process) and forms a vinegar like substance by the end of the day, so you need to be really close to the source to be able to use it in either dish.
I remember that “seven months of research” clip… that just made this video (despite, or because of, the weekend drop) feel like it would define this channel. 🎉
You guys are the ambassadors of Chinese cooking, I've always thought that Chinese cooks are alchemists, you've proved me right......thank you for sharing all your research.
With every video you make just increases my appreciation and respect for cochineal cooking techniques and my admiration and gratitude for your work! You two are the best thing to ever happen to fans of - not just Asian - cooking.
Can’t thank you enough for this. My late MIL talked about using lao mian to make mantou when she was a young girl. Now my starter is almost ready to use. Thank you again!
Wow. Awesome. My parents had tried on and off since the early 1980s to do this but never figured it out. Tangential thoughts. 1. I got flashbacks to watching Stargate SG1 where archeologist Daniel Jackson is researching ancient pictographs and decoding things about them for whatever storyline plot is going on. I guess that means understanding traditional Chinese calligraphy for the win? 2. Sourdough all around the world. Fascinating how fermentation happens around the world for human consumption. 3. If I can get those yeast balls, I will definitely give this a try and add it to my western sourdough repertoire. Thank you!
The way you work, and the dedication to historical accuracy and proof--it hits academic quality standards, and I love you for it (in the way a fan loves youtubers). Thanks for another great video!
Really appreciate the clear and concise instruction and advice for finding ingredients outside of China - definitely a common roadblock when trying recipes here in the US. Incidentally, sodium carbonate can be made at home by baking sodium bicarbonate in the oven at ~200C for half an hour.
@@jash21222 While sodium carbonate is cheap on its own, Baking Soda is often more readily available locally. Plus, if you only need a small amount for a recipe here and there and already have baking soda on hand, it can be more cost effective to simply make your own since carbonate will eventually break down into other less useful compounds with exposure to air and moisture.
I am impressed! I have laozao on hand, so I made up the starter and in less than 24 hours it was bubbly and ripe. I will refresh for a few days and then try the mantou recipe. Thank you for your excellent work.
You go down that rabbit hole anytime. That was some crazy research and data mining you did there. Fascinating stuff, great work! I feel like there should be an award or something for that. ☺ Now I have another adventure to add to my gotta learn it bucket list. Side question, have you guys ever done a video about flour. I don't recall one. I watch videos from China, etc and wonder if my flour here in Canada differs from flour in China. I think it does. Also, there are many types of flour and flour mixes it seems and I can't make sense of it all. I understand the high protein for certain methods at least. Then there are the starches in amazing diversity. I feel like they each maybe lend something different to the different methods as well. It is just so amazing and overwhelming when one is really wanting to learn. Like you, having it click, is a really satisfying moment. I live for that. 😁
Fellow Canadian here. The biggest differences I've noticed between our flour and the flours that Chris and Steph use are protein content and how much water they absorb. For example, the AP flour they use in the biangbiangmian recipe is 11% protein, while Canadian AP flour is 13.5% (or at least, every brand I've found is). As for hydration, one of the captions in the Pineapple Pizza Bao video said that Canadian AP flours specifically tend to be "very thirsty", and I completely agree. When I make biangbiang noodles, I usually have to add about 20% more water than the recipe calls for to make sure the dough combines properly (120g instead of 100g if you use Chris and Steph's recipe, for example). I live in Calgary, though, so depending on where you are you might not need as much. Hope this helps!
Location for sure would be a factor. Our summers are humid and we have no air conditioning. All I have to do is let flour sit out for a bit and it will absorb some moisture. I am more wondering about things like, what is a noodle flour vs a bun flour vs a dumpling wrapper flour actually look like. I have watched loads of videos and the translations give the flour a designation like "this is noodle flour". So, I am trying to figure out what that means. Also, does our flour have the same base ingredients. Cdn. flour is 80% hard wheat and 20 % soft wheat with fortification, Calcium Carbonate, iron, etc. So would that change the final product if China blends their flour differently or do they just import our flour. Things like that. I feel like this would be interesting and I for one would love to know more. ☺@@brookechang4942
I particularly enjoy your tutuorial. cos you explain clearly, brief history, easy to understand. also I am English stream and only speaks Cantonese. tx alot. appreciate your detials.
This explains why all of the bao recipes I’ve found that use western sourdough starter always get comments about it being too sour. Probably both a combination of too much lactic acid bacteria and too little alkaline added (since they tend to use regular baking soda as well).
Western sourdough starter doesn’t necessarily need to make a sour tasting bread. It depends on how soon you use the starter from when it was last fed fresh flour. If you feed the starter and then use it a short time after that, the bread will not be sour. But the longer you wait, the more sour the bread will taste.
Oh, that's so cool! We're immensely thankful for his great work and will forever appreciate what he does to even make some of this kind research possible!
I have been making sweet rice wine for years and have never thought of using it to make my favorite pau. I tried your recipe and it turned out just 👌. Thanks for sharing.
Def going to try this! Thankyou so much for all of the work you put into this? Now I have to figure out what else I can make with sweet fermented rice 😂
My dad is from Guiyang and there has always been a bowl of jiuliang (which is laozao according to my dad) in the fridge my whole goddamn life. To think the trick to pillowy mantou was literally something always available in my fridge is insane. We just use it to make a breakfast dish and my dad just likes to eat it plain...
I used to bake bread many years ago, before it was such a craze online. There was a huge difference between rye sour dough and wheat sour dough: Rye sour dough is probably close to what you call "western sour dough", it's sour, it's tangy, it has that distinctive lactic acid kick. Wheat sour dough (if made properly) is almost sweet, yeasty, and lacks that pickle element. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but maybe German style wheat sour dough is already quite similar to laomian? Who knows!
So the thesis about how LAB outnumber yeast cells is a study on Italian bakery: www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Italian-bakery-products-obtained-with-sour-dough-%3A-Ottogalli-Galli/2bb0bbb01ca9c423c82117fe97811c0546962d2c Regarding the difference, I do find that the sourdough started with mixed grain (black rice, whole wheat, and such) tend to be obviously sour, and the wheat one made with just AP (like the one we had in char siu bao video, which also worked) tends to be a lot less sour compared to the former. However, the special thing about the rhizopus started one is that it's very sweet and turns into a alcoholic smell very fast if you don't feed it frequent enough. But it is true that I never made a European style sourdough myself, looking at the process, it's quite similar to the Chinese laomian that's made with just flour or flour + gourd. So yeah, who know, we'll need to make it side by side to find out.
Successfully made the starter from the fermented rice wine using the Shanghai yeast balls. Was concerned when the grey and black mold appeared but your notes said that’s normal. It’s very active. Thanks for the inspiration
Just finished the first batch of mantou using this recipe! I think I might need a bit more flour in the dough, 'cause it was incredibly sticky. The end result, however, was awesome! I've made baozi and mantou with the normal yeast you'd find in Swedish super markets before, and it's never really gotten the perfect fluffyness and always tasted a bit yeasty to me. These mantou were just perfect! Thanks again for all the great recipes!
That's awesome! Yeah, I just resteamed a couple frozen mantous yesterday and they're really good, that fragrant and texture are something that yeast meantous don't have. I'm glad you like them!
This looks like WAY too much trouble to do at home, but this video has made me appreciate Bao even more. Now if I could just find a good Dim Sum restaurant where I live...
To make sodium carbonate, you can simply bake off sodium bicarbonate, or if you want a faster method simply heat it up in a pan, it takes about 12 minutes.
This is the deep dive we didn't know we needed. It's so interesting. With the exception of the addition of alkali, it is similar to the historical method of making bread with beer barm.
French baking has something quite similar called pâte fermentée (old dough) which is core to making a real baguette. Unlike laomian, pâte fermentée the sourness is controlled by the duration of the old dough's storage. Traditionally it is stored for 24-48 hours at room temperature or it can get too sour, and 5-7 days in a fridge or it gets too sour. This keeps one from needing to add baking soda or similar. Unlike laomian, the entire pâte fermentée is put into the current batch of dough, then a bit of the new dough is ripped off and stored. This feeds the pâte fermentée and keeps the sourness down while still improving the bread flavor. imo using this method is less work than a sourdough starter as making new bread doubles as feeding. It also tastes fantastic and is my favorite "secret" to my own bread making at home.
Thank you so much for doing this and sharing this wisdom. 💖 I am always so inspired by the amount of knowledge gifted to humanity through videos like these
I have eaten bao made using the old traditional laomian and they are tasty. There's a truck selling these sorts of bao in my neighbourhood. My mum also used to make some rice wine. It can be used as dessert or just use the wine for cooking or drinking.
So a side note, "rice flour bread" has been a thing over here in Asia for a bit now, some Japanese bakers even manage to use 100% rice flour, maybe you can look into that if you like bread. Something like this: ua-cam.com/video/AvGpseSVQtI/v-deo.html.
Got myself a nice laozao and a bunch of starters bubbling away in my oven (no heat, just the oven light). Looking forward to making some mantou and baozi, but for now, I just made myself some simple dango and ate them with the laozao. So tasty! I tried buying laozao a while back to eat together with bingfen, but I didn't enjoy the taste at all. This one is much milder in flavor, super yummy!
You can also cook your Sodium Bicarbonate in a pan , on a stovetop to make Sodium Carbonate. It will make it more alcaline. However, it is not suggested to make a big batch of sodium carbonate as it will have a tendency to "degrade" and revert back to Sodium bicarbonate overtime.
I used to be able to go to a bakery and just buy the buns. Then the bakeries started producing buns with a western leavened dough. So I stopped purchasing them. After moving, I can't even find the "imitation" buns frozen. So if I want it, I'll have to travel, or make it myself. Let's see which I end up choosing! Thanks for the deep dive. I'll take a look at the sourdough laomian vid.
Absolutely fascinating! I wonder if any of the dim sum restaurants here (in Western Canada) who serve those wonderful fluffy style bao would give me a little piece of their "old dough" to use? (Using "old dough" to give bread a greater depth of flavour is a not-uncommon technique used in western bread baking.)
We're reaching new peaks for obsessive level home cooking and I love it. Some questions: Does using a rice cooker muff up the textural compared to steaming and if so is that a problem for rice wine really? When deciding how much sodium bicarb one should use when subbing for sodium carb, are you just trying to match the final pH of the dough, or are there other considerations in the amount of sodium bicarb you sub with? Is there a shelf life to yeast balls and their powdered equivalent? I've had some sitting around for... Uh, way too long. Have you ever added the yeast balls directly to the dough? I remember from your anshun bun video that you can't use the powdered rice leaven. I'm assuming you cant use it here either. Why not? Have you tried freezeing the live rice wine starter? I'm curious if it can stay in hybrantation. Thanks!
So here're my answer to your questions, hope it helps. Does using a rice cooker muff up the textural compared to steaming and if so is that a problem for rice wine really? In note #15 we talked about rice texture. When deciding how much sodium bicarb one should use when subbing for sodium carb, are you just trying to match the final pH of the dough, or are there other considerations in the amount of sodium bicarb you sub with? During testing, I used baking soda as a direct sub for sodium carbonate, and it worked quite well. So the ration of 0.6% for a fermented dough can also be applied to using sodium carbonate. The baking soda one has slightly weaker gluten but the end result is not too different. Is there a shelf life to yeast balls and their powdered equivalent? I've had some sitting around for... Uh, way too long. Yeast ball may die if they're not properly stored (too hot, too humid, contaminated...). If you're worried, test with a small batch of rice first so that it doesn't go to waste too much. Have you ever added the yeast balls directly to the dough? No. Yeast balls usually need gelatinazided starch to to work well. In some old ways of using yeast ball (jiuqu) to fermente doughs, it seems that people would add cooked rice/flour (almost a congee like) in the dough to help rhizopus to start. I remember from your anshun bun video that you can't use the powdered rice leaven. I'm assuming you cant use it here either. Why not? Same reason as the above question, it needs gelatinized starch (if I understand your question correctly). Have you tried freezeing the live rice wine starter? I'm curious if it can stay in hybrantation. I never tried freezing them, but it should be theorectically possible if it's tightly sealed. Although you'll definetely need more in terms of quantity since freezing would still kill some yeast.
In the West, sodium carbonate is actually pretty easy to find, it's just not sold as a food additive, but rather as a cleaning agent booster for laundry or dishwashing. I remember Arm and Hammer sell them in boxes in grocery stores and they're about a little over 1 dollar.
That's not good grade is always the problem. Making anything for consumption you must always make sure the raw materials used are food grade. The cleaning agents has impurities that are not safe for human consumption
You shouldn't use that for cooking. You would need to look for "food grade" sodium carbonate. Fortunately, sodium carbonate is easy to make from baking soda. You just bake it in the oven. A lot of pretzel recipes have a step where you bake baking soda on a cookie tray to make an alkaline solution. You can follow those instructions to make your own sodium carbonate.
There was a chinese place nearby that had the best steamed buns. Unfortunately they retired/closed, and no where else was nearly as good. It seems this "fermented dough" is what set them apart. Though I don't think I'm committed enough to it to make it myself, it's good to know if I ever find myself with more time.
Going to have to watch this later. I wanted to make some rice wine again. Made it once or twice before. The mold cultures seem very robust - western beermaking involves way too much cleaning and worrying about contamination. Sake methods are also needlessly complicated. I tried asking grandparents how they made rice wine but they have all forgotten. The only info I got is they kept it under the bed.
I love all your videos but I'm the hobbyist, you mentioned, who can -- and will -- have weeks of fun playing with your sourdough starter. Thank you so much for this. Question: I usually use bakers ammonia for my Bao. Is that the acidic ingredient you're replacing with baking soda here?
Just an FYI you can make Sodium Carbonate by heating baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) in a 200 F oven for about an hour. Carbon dioxide and water will be given off, leaving dry sodium carbonate. Alex (French Guy Cooking) made this for his ramen noodle experiment. It gives the packaged ramen noodles its distinctive taste.
Hey guys, a few notes:
1. The first time we ever called for Laomian it was in our old Char Siu Bao recipe… and while there’s a number of things about that recipe that we’re still proud of, to be completely honest looking back our laomian worked there practically by dumb luck. It was the middle of the Guangdong summer, muggy and hot… I think there’s a reason why the only people that’ve ever reported success with that recipe seem to live in Singapore.
2. Spores on the laozao: if you see grey or black color spores on top of the fermented rice, it’s ok, that’s from rhizopus and it means your wine is active, just scrape it off and use the rest of the rice. If you see other color spores on the rice, such red, orange, or green, then it means it’s contaminated by other harmful bacteria and you’ll need to toss it.
3. How to store your laozao? Once the rice has got to its optimal fermentation stage, usually 24-48 hrs later, transfer it to a clean jar, cover, and keep in the fridge. It’ll continue to ferment slowly and the rice will break down, the laozao will turn thicker and even sweeter over time. Or, if you want like to use laozao as a dessert component with its sticky rice grains, you can steam the rice wine once it’s done (i.e. liquid’s coming out), and store it in a clean jar. This way, it won’t keep on fermenting and the rice texture will remain its chew.
4. Can you use bottled laozao from supermarket? No. The bottled one sold at supermarkets are pasteurized, i.e., not active in other words. The rice wine would keep on fermenting once
5. For the starter's initial feeding schedule: feed it 24 hours after the initial mixing, discard 40g of the starter and feed it again with 15g water and 30g flour. Repeat it 24 hours later, keep on feeding it for at least 3-4 days until the start can rise at least double its size within 6-8 hours (ambient temperature around 26-30C), then it’s ready to use. It may take longer if your climate is colder, so be patient and judge by its rise. Once the starter is live and active, you can maintain it just like a western sourdough by either feeding it daily, or keep in the fridge and reviving it once every one or two weeks (or to your own schedule). I found this kind of starter is so strong that I only need to feed it once a month if it stays in the fridge. Feel free to adjust the flour and water quantity according to you baozi/bread making habit, if you like to use more starter to make a bigger dough, you can maintain a bigger, like 50g or even 100g, starter.
6. Note that the amount of flour given in the video is 300g, which is 150g flour for each type of mantou. Except for the baking soda, all the other ratio is calculated based on the weight of flour as a baker’s percentage. (Just in case some of you’re new to the concept: a baker's percentage is a dough formula expressed where the total weight of the flour represents 100%, and all other ingredients are compared by weight to that total and expressed as a percentage.)
7. We made two kinds of mantou in the video, alternatively, you can use the whole fermented dough to make one kind of mantou. Here’re two baker’s percentages for your reference:
Standard mantou:
AP flour 100%
Starter 15%
Water 47% (initial mixing)
Salt 1%
Sugar 3%
Baking soda *0.6% to the weight of fermented dough*
Water for baking soda mixture 3%
Flowering mantou:
AP flour 100%
Starter 15%
Water 47% (initial mixing)
Salt 1%
Sugar 20%-25%
Baking soda *0.6% to the weight of fermented dough*
Water for baking soda mixture 3%
(to be cont')
8. The go to ratio for Chinese bao dough is 50% hydration (50% water to 100% flour), which for 300g flour in the video it should be 150g water. But we’re leaving 10g water out for the alkaline solution that’s added in the final mixing, that’s why the initial water quantity is 140g.
9. Starter ratio. How much starter to use depends on your climate and schedule. We used 15% in the video. Use more starter if you want a quicker ferment or weather is cooler. The general range for this style of baos/buns is 5%-30%.
10. Mantou types: The non-sweet one we show in the video is one kind of northern style mantou, which is on the fluffy side. There’re other styles of course. And one other common type is called 戗面馒头 (qiang mian mantou), which would knead in quite some more flour (without adding water) after it’s done fermenting, creating a firmer texture with layers inside. Some northern mantou hardcore lovers swear by qiang mian style mantou because of its wheat fragrant and chewy texture. But for me, a Cantonese that grew up with pillowy dim sum baos, I still prefer it on the fluffier side and thus making this one in the video.
As for the flowering one, it’s more common to make it with brown sugar for the depth in flavor and more nutrition for yeast. We used white granulated sugar for a more straight foward demonstration of the differences between the two mantous. But I would recommend you to go for dark brown sugar for a better taste.
11. Over ferment: if your dough is soggy, sticky, and smells a bit like alcohol, that means it’s over ferment. You can fix that by adding a touch more alkaline (increment by 0.2-0.3g), or adding more flour to make it less soft. On filming day, our flowering mantou’s dough is a bit over ferment after the long filming time, so I added about 1/4 tsp more baking soda to adjust the texture, basically either knead in alkaline or flour till it no longer sticks to your hand.
12. Proofing set-up. I used the steaming vessel as the proofing set up because it works in our kitchen and it’s usually how people in China would proof their baozi and mantou. If you’re used to making bread and you have your own preferred way of proofing, please feel free to use that. Just make sure that the surface doesn’t dry up.
13. When steaming, some people also heat up the water directly with the mantou sitting inside the pot. The mantou will have a further final rise during the time when water is heating up.
However, if you’re making anything that requires rapid heat for cracking, such as flowering mantou, char siu bao, or fluffy steamed rice cake, you need to take them out of the pot and only put them in when water’s at a rapid boil.
14. Remember to put a dry cloth underneath the buns for the sweet flowering mantou. The dry cloth will absorb excess steam so that it doesn’t cook the mantou skin too fast and prevent it from cracking.
15. Water quantity when cooking sticky rice. When cooking sticky rice for this purpose with a rice cooker, the water quantity doesn’t have to be exact. All we need is a soft and cooked through sticky rice, err on more water than less if you’re not sure.
16. Utensil to use when handling cooked rice. We need out utensils to be absolutely free of oil. Personally, I like to use the Korean style metal chopstick when handling the rice and feeding the starter as they’re very easy to clean, unlike bamboo, wood, or plastic.
17. Herb mixture for the yeast ball. There’re so many kinds of herb mixture to make the ball, but one herb that’s always used is Persicaria hydropiper (辣蓼).
18. Fermenting in rice cooker. If you need to cook rice everyday with your rice cooker, then transfer the cooked sticky rice to a clean container when it’s hot, let it cool down, mix the yeast in and let it ferment. However, I do recommend using rice cooker if you don’t need to cook rice everyday as that outside holder helps to keep temperature warmer especially if you’re in a cooler climate.
19. Serving temperature for mantou and baozi. Unlike bread, Chinese style steamed buns/baos/maotou are usually best eaten hot, so enjoy it not too long after steaming and don’t wait for it to completely cooled down. There’re of course exceptions, the chewy sponge rice cake (米糕/发糕) that’s made fermenting with rice wine directly, it’s best eaten after it completely cools down for maximized chewiness.
20. Commercial yeast doughs usually wouldn’t work in traditional recipes that call for alkaline since commercial yeast dough is a lot less acidic (Source: bakerpedia.com/processes/ph/), and the texture is quite different as we discussed in our flaky fluffy Posu bao video (ua-cam.com/video/hR39C5Gmr1c/v-deo.html).
21. The original thesis discussing the LAB to yeast composition in sourdough: www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Italian-bakery-products-obtained-with-sour-dough-%3A-Ottogalli-Galli/2bb0bbb01ca9c423c82117fe97811c0546962d2c
22. One of the theses discussing the microorganism composition of Chinese fermented rice win: 闫华文. 2015. 甜酒曲中真菌多样性的研究及甜酒酿营养成分分析. Then this is a comparison of variables of fermented sweet rice wine: Study on the Best Brewing Technology of Sweet Ferment Rice (www.casb.org.cn/EN/10.11924/j.issn.1000-6850.casb2022-0204, also in Chinese unfortunately).
23. And finally, some fun excerpts from ancient books that I collected during the process of trying to find more info about how tf laomian is made, lol. Just for the entertainment of any Chinese readers out there:
关于“醴”字：【前汉·楚元王传】元王每置酒，常为穆生设醴。【注】师古曰：醴，甘酒也。少曲多米，一宿而熟。
关于“发面”：【《通典》，唐杜佑撰，801年，礼九，时享。】面起饼：齐永明九年正月，诏太庙四时祭，荐宣皇帝面起饼、鸭衮；孝皇后笋、鸭卵、脯酱、炙白肉；高皇帝荐肉脍、葅羹；昭皇后茗、粣、炙鱼：皆所嗜也。
关于用酒发面：【周礼注疏，郑司农, 114年前】酏食：又《醢人》羞豆之实，酏食糁食。《注》郑司农云：酏食，以酒酏为餠
关于开花馒头：【晋书．何曾传】厨膳滋味，过于王者。每燕见，不食太官所设，帝辄命取其食。蒸饼上不拆作十字不食。
关于酸浆和米酒发面：【齐民要术】饼法第八十二。
《食经》曰：作饼酵法：酸浆一斗，煎取七升；用粳米一升着浆，迟下火，如作粥。「六月时，溲一石面，着二升；冬时，着四升作。
作白饼法：面一石。白米七八升，作粥，以白酒六七升酵中，着火上。酒鱼眼沸，绞去滓，以和面。面起可作。
关于“包子”和“馒头”之名：古代“馒头”有馅，现代意义的馒头属于“实心馒头”，根据可搜索内容，该词应该最早出现于《儒林外史》。《王孝廉村学识同科 周蒙师暮年登上第》：“众人说他发的利市好，同斟一杯，送与周先生预贺，把周先生脸上羞的红一块，白一块，只得承谢众人，将酒接在手里。厨下捧出汤点来，一大盘实心馒头，一盘油煎的扛子火烧。众人道：“这点心是素的，先生用几个。”周进怕汤不洁净，讨了茶来吃点心。”
24.【UPDATE on 25th Aug】, thank you for commenter @jong pointing out purchasing yeast balls online: "Long time rice wine maker here in the States, Amazon is a 50/50 chance of getting a dead Shanghai Yeast Ball. You are far better going to a Chinese/Asian market and looking there. They typically will sell the bulk packs for nearly-less than 1 small pack from Amazon, and it has sat for most of it's life in a conditioned storage space inside the storefront."
I got excited when I saw rhizopus and yeast, and super excited when I saw lees!! I make sweet rice wine every summer (feels like a waste of perfect 30C weather not to) and I've been looking for ways to repurpose the lees! would love to see a lees version of this!!
@@ChineseCookingDemystified any halal way to make laozao? Meaning no wine
Hi guys. Sodium Carbonate is actually super easy to get in the west: You bake your baking soda on something like a sheet tray to cause a chemical reaction that produces steam. I learned this because during lockdown, I explored making 面 from scratch because all the local noodle factories closed down. I still have a jar of the stuff, and would appreciate a note indicating the amount of sodium carbonate to use if using that.
@@astridwolf911probably hot humid weather, since they mention only peeps from SG managed to get similar rise/texture on their previous Bao vid.
To this day the "7 months... 7 months of testing" gives me chills, seeing the exact moment when someone has realised their work paid off is so joyful!
Noticed a difference in as well when I started using a Filipino rice wine called tapay/tapuey as the starter. My breads were fluffier, a tad sweeter, but still has a bit of tangy funk that you'd come to expect from Western sourdough. And and my siopao (Filipino adaptation of baozi) had the signature craggly exploded look and pillowy texture, that I can only find in dim sum places.
Yeah, I believe the Filipino one is also powered by rhizopus, the only difference is that the starch is tapioca/cassava. So it's no suprise they'll have similar effects. And I do love bread made with laomian, so fragrant.
This is the reason why bread is called tinapay (literal translation is "rice wined" in English) in Tagalog. Historically rice wine was used to leaven breads and cakes. In the Visayas they still have traditional rice pancakes that are leavened with palm wine (tuba).
As a Chinese American man who cooks professionally but has never cooked in a Chinese kitchen, I cannot "smash that like button" enough in this video. I cannot describe how revealing this is to me and my mom, who loves to cook, but has been blind for years and hasn't been able to do research herself in Chinese as my reading & writing skills are horrible. For years I've been so frustrated by the lack of English language resource materials on REAL Chinese cuisine - as you pointef out, there's just so. much. bullsh*t. out there on the internet.
Thank you so very much for this enlightening information! I hope you guys don't ever stop making content like this.
I love how much research you put into this. Chinese cooking has so much history and I would never have come to appreciate it so much without videos like yours.
9:07 -- Long time rice wine maker here in the States, Amazon is a 50/50 chance of getting a dead Shanghai Yeast Ball. You are far better going to a Chinese/Asian market and looking there. They typically will sell the bulk packs for nearly-less than 1 small pack from Amazon, and it has sat for most of it's life in a conditioned storage space inside the storefront.
I will never do this but I deeply admire all the effort and dedication that went into it.
Do it, try it. Fail and learn. That is the greatest respect to bestow for the culinary arts behind mastering it
The level of research and dedication you provide is really second to none! Awesome
You're a lifesaver omg
I'm wanting to start making my own char siu bao and other baozi. Mainly because the people my family normally goes to get these, they are getting older and aren't making baozi and char siu bao as often anymore. To be fair, it is a labor of love but it's so worth it. The end result really makes it all worth it
So char siu bao's hard... If you use our recipe for it, which is (still) the only one that uses laomian I believe. You can either use this rice wine laomian or the sourdough laomian. Just make sure that you starter is very active. And you may not success the first couple time and you'll need to adjust it according to your own climate, flour, leavening agent, etc. However, just remember that it's about getting a acidic dough to balance the leavening agents, and one classic ratio of the dough is 70% slightly under fermented dough + 30% flour (remember to use cake flour for char siu bao).
@@ChineseCookingDemystified as a northerner who grew up in Singapore, I always used 'sourdough' to make char siu bao because...well, it's what I'm familiar with; a lot of online recipes use baking powder and I don't have as much intuition with chemically-leavened dough. I always thought I was doing this in a north/south fusion way that's not authentic to Cantonese cooking; it's good to know that I somehow stumbled upon the right idea!
You can make sodium carbonate by baking sodium bicarbonate for 30 minutes in the oven. Wear gloves when working with Sodium Carbonate. It's caustic like pH 11-13.
What temp do you bake it at?
@@500dollarjapanesetoaster8 I've done 160C, ~30 minutes
Does it get to 13 at any concentration? That is extremely basic. (11 is 10x more than 10, 12 is 10x more than 11, etc. So the difference between 11 and 13 is really an immense one.)
@@frosted3 Sodium carbonate solutions have a pH not directly dependent on the molarity since you have both carbonate and bicarbonate ions formed in the solution, and it also reacts with water to form carbonic acid (a weak acid), more hydroxide ions and free sodium ions. The pH of a saturated solution of sodium carbonate is around 11.7. Molarity isn’t the whole story when it comes to pH. Not to mention, the solubulity of sodium carbonate actually drops once you go above around 35°C. Reality is more involved than Chem 101.
you can also use a dry (very dry) pan over the stove top.
Historically speaking, most leavening agents before the advent of chemical leavening were either eggs or yeast. More specifically, leftover liquid yeast from a variety of brewing and drink fermenting processes. The brewer/winemaker was a close friend of the baker in many cultures. It's little surprise that the radical for wine is hiding in that character.
Or Salt of hartshorn AKA ammonium carbonate, obtained by dry distillation of oil of hartshorn obtained from the destructive distillation of deer antlers.
Barm was the main leavening in European history after large-scale beer brewing took off, but that's really fairly recent. That's when 'sweet' bread (not sourdough) finally became the usual form. Maintaining a culture in dough through successive replenishment (sourdough) was the older practice.
I love watching you guys do these dives into harder to reach areas of food like this
Am I nerdy enough to make my own rice-wine-based starter and feed it diligently? No.
Am I thoroughly in awe of the sheer level of obsessiveness, attention to detail, and remarkably clear explanation of a pretty complex process? Absolutely!
I really loved this video because of your journey of discovery for this recipe. I especially loved the point where you realized that the radical for wine was always there in the name and your epiphany on the importance of that one character in the name. I always love your videos, but this one was truly awesome.
Fermenting with alcohol reminds me of this steamed rice dish that catholic communities in Goa and Mangalore in India make called sannas. It uses toddy which is a quick fermenting sap from a palm tree. In catholic communities from Bombay, there’s another dish which is basically fried bread dough balls and they are called fugias which are also fermented with toddy. Of course, these days most people use yeast as toddy is difficult to find and is very time sensitive as it ferments really quickly after being tapped from the tree (a very dangerous process) and forms a vinegar like substance by the end of the day, so you need to be really close to the source to be able to use it in either dish.
Thank you for all your efforts to finally get to what makes an original Chinese Bun!!! Historically fascinating and beautifully made!
I remember that “seven months of research” clip… that just made this video (despite, or because of, the weekend drop) feel like it would define this channel. 🎉
You guys are the ambassadors of Chinese cooking, I've always thought that Chinese cooks are alchemists, you've proved me right......thank you for sharing all your research.
With every video you make just increases my appreciation and respect for cochineal cooking techniques and my admiration and gratitude for your work! You two are the best thing to ever happen to fans of - not just Asian - cooking.
Can’t thank you enough for this. My late MIL talked about using lao mian to make mantou when she was a young girl. Now my starter is almost ready to use. Thank you again!
Wow. Awesome. My parents had tried on and off since the early 1980s to do this but never figured it out. Tangential thoughts.
1. I got flashbacks to watching Stargate SG1 where archeologist Daniel Jackson is researching ancient pictographs and decoding things about them for whatever storyline plot is going on. I guess that means understanding traditional Chinese calligraphy for the win?
2. Sourdough all around the world. Fascinating how fermentation happens around the world for human consumption.
3. If I can get those yeast balls, I will definitely give this a try and add it to my western sourdough repertoire.
Thank you!
Great shout out to Food Wishes! That channel got me into cooking and trying new things, and brought me all the way here
Can't believe how much time Steph put into this one. Thank you as always for these priceless dives
The way you work, and the dedication to historical accuracy and proof--it hits academic quality standards, and I love you for it (in the way a fan loves youtubers). Thanks for another great video!
Thanks for your hard work and research, very excited to try this out myself!
This is very detailed. I appreciate this so much. Thank you.
Really appreciate the clear and concise instruction and advice for finding ingredients outside of China - definitely a common roadblock when trying recipes here in the US.
Incidentally, sodium carbonate can be made at home by baking sodium bicarbonate in the oven at ~200C for half an hour.
@@jash21222 While sodium carbonate is cheap on its own, Baking Soda is often more readily available locally. Plus, if you only need a small amount for a recipe here and there and already have baking soda on hand, it can be more cost effective to simply make your own since carbonate will eventually break down into other less useful compounds with exposure to air and moisture.
Dude, publish this in a journal somewhere!
LOVE the historically perspective and the mention of your resources. That's exactly what im looking for
Love your Cantonese pronunciation of the words 酸鹼平衡
I am impressed! I have laozao on hand, so I made up the starter and in less than 24 hours it was bubbly and ripe. I will refresh for a few days and then try the mantou recipe. Thank you for your excellent work.
Amazing! Let us know how it turned out!
You go down that rabbit hole anytime. That was some crazy research and data mining you did there. Fascinating stuff, great work! I feel like there should be an award or something for that. ☺ Now I have another adventure to add to my gotta learn it bucket list.
Side question, have you guys ever done a video about flour. I don't recall one. I watch videos from China, etc and wonder if my flour here in Canada differs from flour in China. I think it does. Also, there are many types of flour and flour mixes it seems and I can't make sense of it all. I understand the high protein for certain methods at least. Then there are the starches in amazing diversity. I feel like they each maybe lend something different to the different methods as well. It is just so amazing and overwhelming when one is really wanting to learn. Like you, having it click, is a really satisfying moment. I live for that. 😁
Fellow Canadian here. The biggest differences I've noticed between our flour and the flours that Chris and Steph use are protein content and how much water they absorb. For example, the AP flour they use in the biangbiangmian recipe is 11% protein, while Canadian AP flour is 13.5% (or at least, every brand I've found is).
As for hydration, one of the captions in the Pineapple Pizza Bao video said that Canadian AP flours specifically tend to be "very thirsty", and I completely agree. When I make biangbiang noodles, I usually have to add about 20% more water than the recipe calls for to make sure the dough combines properly (120g instead of 100g if you use Chris and Steph's recipe, for example). I live in Calgary, though, so depending on where you are you might not need as much.
Hope this helps!
Location for sure would be a factor. Our summers are humid and we have no air conditioning. All I have to do is let flour sit out for a bit and it will absorb some moisture.
I am more wondering about things like, what is a noodle flour vs a bun flour vs a dumpling wrapper flour actually look like. I have watched loads of videos and the translations give the flour a designation like "this is noodle flour". So, I am trying to figure out what that means. Also, does our flour have the same base ingredients. Cdn. flour is 80% hard wheat and 20 % soft wheat with fortification, Calcium Carbonate, iron, etc. So would that change the final product if China blends their flour differently or do they just import our flour. Things like that. I feel like this would be interesting and I for one would love to know more. ☺@@brookechang4942
Scholar level achievement. Y’all r the best.
I particularly enjoy your tutuorial. cos you explain clearly, brief history, easy to understand. also I am English stream and only speaks Cantonese. tx alot. appreciate your detials.
This is so much more than a cooking video. Thank you so much for this amazing trip you took us Steph.❤
This explains why all of the bao recipes I’ve found that use western sourdough starter always get comments about it being too sour. Probably both a combination of too much lactic acid bacteria and too little alkaline added (since they tend to use regular baking soda as well).
Western sourdough starter doesn’t necessarily need to make a sour tasting bread. It depends on how soon you use the starter from when it was last fed fresh flour. If you feed the starter and then use it a short time after that, the bread will not be sour. But the longer you wait, the more sour the bread will taste.
You could also use less starters to make levain. Then use it for making sourdough bread.
This is such an incredible video. Your hard work seriously paid off!!
H.T. Huang is my aunt's dad! So cool to see his chapter get referenced - I told my aunt and uncle :)
Oh, that's so cool! We're immensely thankful for his great work and will forever appreciate what he does to even make some of this kind research possible!
Fascinating video! Love the amount of effort given to the accuracy. :)
Amazing work and dedication to the topic! Love all of your content.
I have a big batch of sweet fermented rice that I had no particular plans for hanging around. I'm so glad I found this video before I used it all!
Chef John spotted. Legend recognises legend here.
5:51 won’t lie. I so f-ing impressed by the level of research that goes into this.
This video was so cool and interesting, I even had a dream last night that I went in search for the herbal yeast balls to make the starter 😆
I have been making sweet rice wine for years and have never thought of using it to make my favorite pau. I tried your recipe and it turned out just 👌. Thanks for sharing.
Fantastic video!!
As someone who loves to ferment stuff, I really appreciate this recipe. Time to begin a starter for the labor of love of char siu bao.
Def going to try this! Thankyou so much for all of the work you put into this? Now I have to figure out what else I can make with sweet fermented rice 😂
My dad is from Guiyang and there has always been a bowl of jiuliang (which is laozao according to my dad) in the fridge my whole goddamn life. To think the trick to pillowy mantou was literally something always available in my fridge is insane. We just use it to make a breakfast dish and my dad just likes to eat it plain...
Thank you for your quality work and research!
This was a great episode! Thank you so much!!! 🙂💜
I used to bake bread many years ago, before it was such a craze online. There was a huge difference between rye sour dough and wheat sour dough: Rye sour dough is probably close to what you call "western sour dough", it's sour, it's tangy, it has that distinctive lactic acid kick. Wheat sour dough (if made properly) is almost sweet, yeasty, and lacks that pickle element. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but maybe German style wheat sour dough is already quite similar to laomian? Who knows!
I had similar thoughts. The Italian lievito madre is a wheat starter which seems to be very close.
Yeah, you can easily make a sourdough starter that isn't sour. That's what I have.
So the thesis about how LAB outnumber yeast cells is a study on Italian bakery: www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Italian-bakery-products-obtained-with-sour-dough-%3A-Ottogalli-Galli/2bb0bbb01ca9c423c82117fe97811c0546962d2c
Regarding the difference, I do find that the sourdough started with mixed grain (black rice, whole wheat, and such) tend to be obviously sour, and the wheat one made with just AP (like the one we had in char siu bao video, which also worked) tends to be a lot less sour compared to the former.
However, the special thing about the rhizopus started one is that it's very sweet and turns into a alcoholic smell very fast if you don't feed it frequent enough. But it is true that I never made a European style sourdough myself, looking at the process, it's quite similar to the Chinese laomian that's made with just flour or flour + gourd. So yeah, who know, we'll need to make it side by side to find out.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Considering that bacteria are incredibly small compared to yeast, it would be odd for the ratio to be comparable.
Successfully made the starter from the fermented rice wine using the Shanghai yeast balls. Was concerned when the grey and black mold appeared but your notes said that’s normal. It’s very active. Thanks for the inspiration
太好了，视频制作精良，甚至还能学到食品进化历史
Just finished the first batch of mantou using this recipe! I think I might need a bit more flour in the dough, 'cause it was incredibly sticky. The end result, however, was awesome! I've made baozi and mantou with the normal yeast you'd find in Swedish super markets before, and it's never really gotten the perfect fluffyness and always tasted a bit yeasty to me. These mantou were just perfect!
Thanks again for all the great recipes!
That's awesome! Yeah, I just resteamed a couple frozen mantous yesterday and they're really good, that fragrant and texture are something that yeast meantous don't have. I'm glad you like them!
Really want to leave my compliments, the effort of your research and explaination of chinese sourdough is just fantastic!!
This looks like WAY too much trouble to do at home, but this video has made me appreciate Bao even more. Now if I could just find a good Dim Sum restaurant where I live...
Absolute GOAT content
To make sodium carbonate, you can simply bake off sodium bicarbonate, or if you want a faster method simply heat it up in a pan, it takes about 12 minutes.
This is the deep dive we didn't know we needed. It's so interesting. With the exception of the addition of alkali, it is similar to the historical method of making bread with beer barm.
OMG!!!! YOU'RE AMAZING, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!
Great episode, and as always, thanks for sharing!
French baking has something quite similar called pâte fermentée (old dough) which is core to making a real baguette. Unlike laomian, pâte fermentée the sourness is controlled by the duration of the old dough's storage. Traditionally it is stored for 24-48 hours at room temperature or it can get too sour, and 5-7 days in a fridge or it gets too sour. This keeps one from needing to add baking soda or similar.
Unlike laomian, the entire pâte fermentée is put into the current batch of dough, then a bit of the new dough is ripped off and stored. This feeds the pâte fermentée and keeps the sourness down while still improving the bread flavor. imo using this method is less work than a sourdough starter as making new bread doubles as feeding. It also tastes fantastic and is my favorite "secret" to my own bread making at home.
Thank you so much for doing this and sharing this wisdom. 💖 I am always so inspired by the amount of knowledge gifted to humanity through videos like these
OMG thank you!! This! This is so hard to find even in Chinese. Thank you!
So much investigation spent figuring this out! Congratulations on breaking the code!
You are a necessary force of good in this world. Thank you so much for this!
This is such invaluable insight!! What an awesome video! Thank you so much for doing the research!
That's some amazing work and fantastic presentation!
I have eaten bao made using the old traditional laomian and they are tasty. There's a truck selling these sorts of bao in my neighbourhood.
My mum also used to make some rice wine. It can be used as dessert or just use the wine for cooking or drinking.
Thank you so much for your hardwork and dedication 🙏 a great video as usual
This is incredible work! Thank you for all you do!
You guys are so very good. Great idea!
Fantastic video! Very interesting details. Thank you so much
I admire and appreciate y’all’s work so much!
This is amazing. I still enjoyed learning about this even though I'm allergic to wheat and can't eat this dough
So a side note, "rice flour bread" has been a thing over here in Asia for a bit now, some Japanese bakers even manage to use 100% rice flour, maybe you can look into that if you like bread. Something like this: ua-cam.com/video/AvGpseSVQtI/v-deo.html.
Got myself a nice laozao and a bunch of starters bubbling away in my oven (no heat, just the oven light). Looking forward to making some mantou and baozi, but for now, I just made myself some simple dango and ate them with the laozao. So tasty!
I tried buying laozao a while back to eat together with bingfen, but I didn't enjoy the taste at all. This one is much milder in flavor, super yummy!
You can also cook your Sodium Bicarbonate in a pan , on a stovetop to make Sodium Carbonate. It will make it more alcaline. However, it is not suggested to make a big batch of sodium carbonate as it will have a tendency to "degrade" and revert back to Sodium bicarbonate overtime.
I used to be able to go to a bakery and just buy the buns. Then the bakeries started producing buns with a western leavened dough. So I stopped purchasing them. After moving, I can't even find the "imitation" buns frozen. So if I want it, I'll have to travel, or make it myself. Let's see which I end up choosing! Thanks for the deep dive. I'll take a look at the sourdough laomian vid.
Absolutely fascinating! I wonder if any of the dim sum restaurants here (in Western Canada) who serve those wonderful fluffy style bao would give me a little piece of their "old dough" to use? (Using "old dough" to give bread a greater depth of flavour is a not-uncommon technique used in western bread baking.)
We're reaching new peaks for obsessive level home cooking and I love it.
Some questions:
Does using a rice cooker muff up the textural compared to steaming and if so is that a problem for rice wine really?
When deciding how much sodium bicarb one should use when subbing for sodium carb, are you just trying to match the final pH of the dough, or are there other considerations in the amount of sodium bicarb you sub with?
Is there a shelf life to yeast balls and their powdered equivalent? I've had some sitting around for... Uh, way too long.
Have you ever added the yeast balls directly to the dough?
I remember from your anshun bun video that you can't use the powdered rice leaven. I'm assuming you cant use it here either. Why not?
Have you tried freezeing the live rice wine starter? I'm curious if it can stay in hybrantation.
Thanks!
So here're my answer to your questions, hope it helps.
Does using a rice cooker muff up the textural compared to steaming and if so is that a problem for rice wine really?
In note #15 we talked about rice texture.
When deciding how much sodium bicarb one should use when subbing for sodium carb, are you just trying to match the final pH of the dough, or are there other considerations in the amount of sodium bicarb you sub with?
During testing, I used baking soda as a direct sub for sodium carbonate, and it worked quite well. So the ration of 0.6% for a fermented dough can also be applied to using sodium carbonate. The baking soda one has slightly weaker gluten but the end result is not too different.
Is there a shelf life to yeast balls and their powdered equivalent? I've had some sitting around for... Uh, way too long.
Yeast ball may die if they're not properly stored (too hot, too humid, contaminated...). If you're worried, test with a small batch of rice first so that it doesn't go to waste too much.
Have you ever added the yeast balls directly to the dough?
No. Yeast balls usually need gelatinazided starch to to work well. In some old ways of using yeast ball (jiuqu) to fermente doughs, it seems that people would add cooked rice/flour (almost a congee like) in the dough to help rhizopus to start.
I remember from your anshun bun video that you can't use the powdered rice leaven. I'm assuming you cant use it here either. Why not?
Same reason as the above question, it needs gelatinized starch (if I understand your question correctly).
Have you tried freezeing the live rice wine starter? I'm curious if it can stay in hybrantation.
I never tried freezing them, but it should be theorectically possible if it's tightly sealed. Although you'll definetely need more in terms of quantity since freezing would still kill some yeast.
I can't be the only one waiting to hear the Yoshi nom sound when Steph took that bite at the very end...
In the West, sodium carbonate is actually pretty easy to find, it's just not sold as a food additive, but rather as a cleaning agent booster for laundry or dishwashing. I remember Arm and Hammer sell them in boxes in grocery stores and they're about a little over 1 dollar.
That's not good grade is always the problem. Making anything for consumption you must always make sure the raw materials used are food grade. The cleaning agents has impurities that are not safe for human consumption
You shouldn't use that for cooking. You would need to look for "food grade" sodium carbonate. Fortunately, sodium carbonate is easy to make from baking soda. You just bake it in the oven. A lot of pretzel recipes have a step where you bake baking soda on a cookie tray to make an alkaline solution. You can follow those instructions to make your own sodium carbonate.
Foodwishes spotted, this video is already good!
There was a chinese place nearby that had the best steamed buns. Unfortunately they retired/closed, and no where else was nearly as good. It seems this "fermented dough" is what set them apart.
Though I don't think I'm committed enough to it to make it myself, it's good to know if I ever find myself with more time.
Going to have to watch this later. I wanted to make some rice wine again. Made it once or twice before. The mold cultures seem very robust - western beermaking involves way too much cleaning and worrying about contamination. Sake methods are also needlessly complicated. I tried asking grandparents how they made rice wine but they have all forgotten. The only info I got is they kept it under the bed.
You can make sodium carbonate by putting baking soda in the oven for 1hr at 400F
I love all your videos but I'm the hobbyist, you mentioned, who can -- and will -- have weeks of fun playing with your sourdough starter. Thank you so much for this.
Question: I usually use bakers ammonia for my Bao. Is that the acidic ingredient you're replacing with baking soda here?
Sodium carbonate :) But Baker's ammonia is a classic for Char Siu Bao
Another great video - thanks ! 🤩
Instant click haha, I love the brutal honesty about people spouting BS on the internet LOL. And yeah that real dim sum bao is soooo good.
Really interesting, thank you as always!!
Just an FYI you can make Sodium Carbonate by heating baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) in a 200 F oven for about an hour. Carbon dioxide and water will be given off, leaving dry sodium carbonate. Alex (French Guy Cooking) made this for his ramen noodle experiment. It gives the packaged ramen noodles its distinctive taste.
if you bake your baking soda in the oven it will bake into sodium carbonate. a trick for making powdered kansui for ramen noodles
Love this!!
had to comment because this video is 💯💯💯
I am utterly immersed in your channel as you explore and really dig deep into Chinese cuisine. The research is impeccable!
好耐无食叉烧包啦，好想试下呢个方法，系就系麻烦左嘀，不过整野既过程都系好疗愈。唔该晒.
Now I'm wondering what happens if you use laomian to make western style sourdough
Enjoyable watch. Thank you.