One of our favorite things to do pre-baby was to visit San Francisco about once a month. It was about a 40 min drive from Sunnyvale where we lived at the time. We would drive into San Francisco just to explore the food scene. We did this when we needed a change from the local fare in nearby cities of the Silicon Valley. We also loved walking the hilly streets of SFO. If we headed in a bit early, we would drive into Sausalito to experience its seaside charm.
Years ago, I discovered a little shop in Chinatown, San Francisco known as The Wok Shop. It is easily the smallest hole in the wall I’ve ever seen in my life. This little shop carries mostly knives and some kitchen items specific to Asian cuisine. I bought the infamous Kiwi knife from Thailand here. I have gifted this rustic-looking inexpensive knife to many family and friends since.
On one such visit, I walked into a small store in the area to buy some Asian ingredients. I noticed a little food stall within the store that had these curious little steamed buns. A handwritten board that read “Fresh steamed buns” hung loosely above the counter. They looked very appetizing and reminded me of our Tamil kozhukattais. The sight of those steamed buns is still fresh in my mind years later.
As I watched a documentary about rural life in Guilin today, I was reminded yet again of those buns. The documentary showed rustic pillowy buns that didn’t even have the traditional bao shape. They were handmade by some local women and looked just as delicious as those neatly pleated buns I saw years ago in SFO. I knew I just had to make these. I read up tons of recipes and watched a few videos on the internet. It seemed fairly simple. You make a dough and a filling of your choice like our Indian parathas except you just pleat the dough once you add the filling.
I decided to make a simple vegetarian filling with cabbage, carrots, and arugula. I didn’t follow the recipe every step of the way. I used the dough recipe from Red House Spice quite helpful. Here is a link for those of you interested in making it. I used Wei’s dough recipe and cooked up my filling on the fly. So this is not 100% authentic but is close enough. Also the shape doesn’t have to be exact. It is quite a forgiving recipe that tastes phenomenal even as an oddly shaped pillow!
Vegetarian Baozi Recipe
Makes 5-6 baos
INGREDIENTS
For the dough (Wei’s recipe):
150g cake flour
0.5 tsp dried yeast
0.5 tsp sugar
0.5 tbsp cooking oil
70 ml lukewarm water
For the filling:
1.5-2 cups cabbage; finely shredded
1 whole carrot; grated
2 tbsp coriander leaves; finely chopped
1 handful arugula; roughly chopped
1 tbsp ginger; thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic; minced
0.5 tsp white pepper
A pinch of sichuan pepper
2-3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp cornstarch
Garnish:
Chili garlic oil
METHOD
- Mix the dry ingredients and oil in the bowl of your stand mixer.
- Add the lukewarm water little by little to form a dough.
- Once it is fairly formed, knead it on a lightly floured surface to make a smooth dough. Let it rest for at least 40mins to an hour.
- In a pan, add both regular and sesame oil.
- Add in the ginger and garlic. Saute until fragrant.
- Add the other vegetables, soy sauce, rice vinegar. Cook for 2 minutes.
- Add the cornstarch. Saute for about a min. Turn off heat.
- Divide the dough into equal parts.
- Roll each part into a circle. Fill with a little stuffing. Pinch it all around to form it into a bao shape. Or keep it rustic. It still cooks fine as you can see!
- Place a parchment paper in your steamer portion of your steamer pot. Put the buns and steam for 20 mins.
- Garnish with chili garlic oil (I used S&B) and serve!
