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Vegetable bao

Ching He-Huang from Great Food Bites
For a tasty and authentic Chinese-style snack, Ching He-Huang packs a whole host of mouth-watering ingredients into little steamed dumplings

Vegetable bao

Method

1. To make the dough dissolve the sugar and water together and add the yeast. Leave for 8-10 minutes, until frothy.

2. Sift the flour into a bowl, add the yeast mixture and stir in the oil.

3. Bring the mixture together and knead for about 8 minutes until smooth and elastic. The dough should be soft but not sticky.

4. Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl, cover with a damp tea towel and leave to rise for 3 hours.

5. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a wok and stir fry all the ingredients for the filling together for about 5 minutes, until slightly softened. Remove from the heat.

6. Knead the risen dough until smooth and spread it out slightly. Add the baking powder to the centre, pinch the dough together, and knead again.

7. Roll out into a sausage shape and divide into 6.

8. Roll each piece of dough into a ball and flatten out. Place a tablespoon of the filling into the centre of each piece of dough and gather up the sides.

9. Transfer the bao to a steamer and steam for about 10-15 minutes, until very hot and opaque and a teaspoon inserted into the centre comes out clean and not doughy. Serve.

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Serves: 2

Prep: 1 hr, 3 hrs rising time for dough
Cook: 20 min

Ingredients

For the dough

1.5 tbsp Sugar
125ml warm water
¾ tsp dried yeast
200g plain flour
1 tbsp oil

For the filling

1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 tsp grated Ginger
small handful gailan leaves (Chinese kale), or pak choi
2 Chinese dried mushrooms, soaked in waterfor 10 minutes, drained and chopped
20g boneless chicken breast, or duck meat, shredded
handful dried wood ear Mushrooms, soaked and chopped
handful Bamboo shoots
3 tbsp Soy sauce
pinch ground white pepper
dash of Sesame oil
handful mung bean noodles