I'm Jeremy Pang here, at School of Wok.
I'm here with my good friend, Chris Baber.
Today, it's all a'bao the bao in honour of our Kickstarter campaign.
char siu bao.
Guys, we'll also be doing another recipe with some bao dough - we're gonna do a spring onion
and chive doughnut, or like, bao pancake on Chris' YouTube channel.
So you can find Chris on YouTube and Instagram, all over the internet.
Put the link below.
So, last time we met, you were at my house and we did char siu.
One of my favourites.
I know.
I think Chris, I gave him a little pack to take home and it was finished by the time
he'd reached the front door.
Yeah, it was actually, yeah.
I've been like, craving this again from you.
I've had it out and about, but honestly, your BBQ pork is just like next level.
I mean, it's home cooked.
It's got more love to it.
We're gonna use it as a base to make up our bao.
And you know that we're doing this Kickstarter campaign.
It's all around the bao kit, and we're really excited.
I actually went up on stage with you at Taste of London and we did some bao didn't we?
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
We did some bao then.
So, and at that point, it was all prototype stage.
Now, we've got this full on kit, and it really works.
I'm gonna show you how to make an actual char siu bao from scratch.
Amazing, 'cause this is the sort of thing that at home you'd never think you'd ever
make, but that's the beauty of the kit.
Exactly, the actual pork, I've roasted already.
I've done it in the oven this time, we don't have a BBQ at the school.
When I roasted it in the oven for this, I covered it with tin foil, okay?
So that I could keep as much sauce as possible, because we're going to thicken that sauce
up with a little bit of corn flour paste.
So if you pour all that source into the wok.
What's actually in the sauce, Jeremy?
So, you've got a base of tomato paste, light and dark soy sauce and a little bit of hoisin,
ginger and garlic.
A little bit of rice wine, and some sesame oil.
The black vinegar, or some sort of vinegar works with it well too.
You can kind of mix and match a little, so long as it's got a good sweet sour savoury
flavour.
I guess you can make it to your own taste sort of thing.
Yeah, exactly.
And also the dark soy sauce is really important, yeah?
Thickening this sauce up so that it can stick around the pork.
It's already relatively thick in itself.
Smells so good.
Put all of that, that's about 2 to 3 teaspoons of cornflour paste in there, okay.
Bring that to a boil, and then when it's boiling, then your pork goes straight in.
That'll soak up all that flavour.
I mean, forget the bao.
I could probably just get a spoon and make my way through all of that.
I know what you're like!
You can see now, that sort of thickness of the cornflour, has wrapped it all the way
around.
So you want that to be cold before you...
Yeah, as cold as possible, because you don't want that heat to interrupt with the dough
too much.
Yeah yeah of course, amazing.
So that's the filling for your bao.
So we just basically cool that down and spread it out.
Yeah, let that cool.
Alright?
So, we did bao before, but they were sort of more hirata buns, the sandwich style Thaiwanese
or Japanese breads.
I'm gonna try and show you exactly how to roll and fold the traditional dim sum way,
and try and get you to the ultimate steamed bao in the next 10 minutes.
Sounds achievable.
Usually it takes about 5 days to get this right.
10 minutes is good for me.
Right, so we've got our bao flour mix.
Now, the big difference between making it from scratch, and our flour mix, is that we've
taken it now to about a 10 minute rising time.
We're gonna put that flour into there, and then we'll gradually add the warm water.
Give that a good, just knead with the base of your palm if you can rather than your fingertips
too much.
Try and get all that water into the flour.
What you wanna do is pick up all that flour from the base of that bowl, and once you've
got all that flour we can start to knead on the surface.
A nice push and roll, push and roll, like any other dough really.
What you're looking for is a really nice smooth texture on the bread, but you just need to
- it's almost like not being scared of the dough.
Yeah, of course.
Push and roll, push and roll.
If you do get tired, I'm more than happy to help, but I've done about 1,000 of these in
the last week.
I tell you what, talking of strong arms and stuff, my first ever job was in a Chinese
restaurant.
Oh really?
And the chef was incredible.
Small guy, but his forearms from like, 40 years of cooking on a wok, I couldn't believe
it.
Like, I thought I had strong arms from going to the gym.
Quite stocky, right?
But just like a small guy, but honestly, his arms were like...
I've seen nothing like it.
Dumpling arms?
I used to call them noodle guns.
Once you've got your nice small ball of dough, very easy, you just cup that.
So, straight over, underneath there.
10 minutes.
Weirdly, it won't look like it's done much, unlike a normal - it's just like relaxing
- it relaxes, it gets a little more airy, and then point when it's nice and relaxed,
we can start to roll, fold, roll, fold.
I'm right handed, so my right hand's on the rolling pin.
My index finger is turning the wheel, at all times, the dough must sit on the surface of
the table.
Once you've got that right, then your right hand needs to be doing something else.
Your right hand's going, push in, and when you come out, just relax.
Push in, push in, okay?
It's a bit like the old... tummy and the head!
You know the way we do the wok.
The way we like to wok, yeah?
Right, so tummy and the head, that's in all types of Chinese cooking.
Right, okay.
Then you go in, twist twist, okay?
In, twist twist twist twist twist twist twist twist, okay?
And once you've got one round like that, then you can go further in.
And obviously we'll do bigger bao later on, but this is the movement that you're trying
to get to.
Then, we can actually practice putting something in it, right?
And if you were to put stuff in it, then there's different ways of doing this.
The classic way is what we call the crane, okay?
So it's a crane, it's kinda like the karate kid here.
It's from the top, and it picks up.
Imagine there's something in there.
When you pick up your piece of dough, then we use your index finger to guide towards
the other index finger, okay?
So if I push towards you can see there's a little pleat there.
Once you've got a pleat, then you lift your dominant index finger up, pinch, and pull.
And then we do the same again.
You push in, pick up, pinch and pull.
Yep?
Push in, pick up, pinch and pull.
And keep going 'round, until you sort of get halfway.
When you're halfway, you just change the shape of the hand that's not holding the dough - pinching
the dough.
It's what I call a half eggcup.
Once you've got your half eggcup, you continue.
So you go push in, pick up, pinch and pull.
Push in, pick up, pinch and pull.
Keep going, round round round.
Looks pretty as well.
We're probably gonna go for like, let's try and do 8 baos, okay?
So we'll make them like, mini bao bites.
You kinda just cup your hand over the top, and then just rip it off.
Shall I do that?
Yeah, go for it.
Very professional.
There we are.
Good rip, and then we do the pinchy pinchy, twisty twisty.
And then you've got your nice round ball.
You've got your nice round ball.
Mine's a bit more...
That's okay, don't be scared of it, and really pinch it together.
Mine's a little bit more rugby ball.
Okay, keep going.
And then we're gonna go for your tummy and the head, okay?
And you can go nice and slow.
You don't have to, overdo it on speed.
There we are.
Okay?
Teaspoon of the mix, okay.
And we put that teaspoon of mix in the centre of your dough.
When you're starting, less is more, okay?
As you get more confident you can put more in.
When you've put it in, really push it in, and you can see I've pushed it into that cup
of my fingertips.
Right?
If it's nice and flat, it's easier to play with.
Okay, you ready?
I'm ready.
Crane, from the top, pick up your dough, pinch and pull.
Finger out... pinch.
And when you pinch, actually keep hold of it.
Really pinch that together.
Same again, keep going, keep going, and then I've torn mine a little but that's fine.
And then to finish it off, just gather, gather, gather, and then when you've finished, you
just close that up.
Right, I've got a little hole there.
I've got a little hole there as well.
Hey, I'm pretty chuffed with that actually.
First time I've ever had a go at bao, that one I just need to bring in.
But I guess, don't be scared of the dough is what you're trying to say.
If it needs bringing in then just squeeze it a bit harder, right?
Yeah, and don't worry about that.
And even at the end, you can just sort of...
It may open up a little but you can be a little bit rough with it.
I think that's what I'm finding, you can actually just be, it's not very delicate is it.
No, it's a very forgiving dough.
It doesn't, y'know, it's not like a really really fine dumpling dough.
Where it's gonna tear and if it tears it's the end of the world.
Exactly.
Cool, so, you just pop them into the steam baskets.
Two trays?
Yeah, we'll do 4 in each because they need a bit of space to expand.
And then straight over the top, and then your steam is ready, so straight over that.
And then it literally is, 8 minutes on the steam, and they'll be ready.
Smells great.
Yeah, it's really simple.
Let's open it, let's see what the magic's like.
Oh wow.
I think you can tell which ones I made and which one Jeremy made.
We won't go there!
But you kinda see, look, it'll taste good and you've got a nice fluffy bao to finish
that off.
If they do open up, it's just a roundness of pleating, but I guess it's the moment of
truth.
There are gonna be so hot.
Shall I try one of yours, you try one of mine.
Yeah, okay.
Alright, let's do that.
I'm guessing this is one of yours.
Why you guessing that?
Wow that's really hot.
Mmm.
Wow.
That good?
So good.
The dough is so light and fluffy, it's not starchy or bready, it's actually like extra
fluffy.
And that filling, it's sweet and... ah it's just amazing!
Yeah, and it wasn't too difficult to make, and I think if you piece together those two
dishes, you can make something really quite cool.
Guys, if you want to learn about this or you want to get a different feel of how you can
use our bao kits, y'know, it's great to have you Chris.
And you can put the link to my stuff below, and we're going to do a video with another
recipe on.
Exactly.
We'll do another bao recipe, on Chris' YouTube channel.
Hey, don't forget, subscribe to our channel.
Subscribe to his channel!
And get boa-ing.
Is that a word?
Get bao-ing, why not.
Delicious.
Cheers, Jeremy!
Cheers!