Easy BBQ Pork Buns

by Colleen | December 7, 2009 9:52 am

My fam­ily love Chi­nese style bbq pork buns (char siu bao).  I had made a roast pork the night before last and wanted to use up some of the left­overs.  Of course my pork wasn’t roasted in the tra­di­tional Chi­nese bbq style, but with the addi­tion of a sauce mixed into my roast pork, I felt I could get away with it. For the bun dough I used the mas­ter recipe from my copy of Arti­san Bread in Five Min­utes a Day.

Ingre­di­ents:

Bun dough:

Mas­ter Recipe here.

Roast Pork:

2 cups of roast pork diced (I used left­overs remember)

Sauce:

(Adapted from The Chi­nese Kitchen by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo)

For the Fill­ing (make while the dough is ris­ing):
5 table­spoons low-sodium chicken stock
1 tbsp oys­ter sauce
2  1/2 tsp sugar
2  1/4 tsp tapi­oca or corn starch
2 tsp ketchup
1  1/2 tsp dark soy sauce
Pinch ground white pep­per
1 tbsp oil
1 small onion, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
3/4 cup bar­be­cued pork, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 1/2 tsp Shao Xing rice wine or gin
1 tsp toasted sesame oil

In a small bowl, com­bine chicken stock, oys­ter sauce, sugar, tapi­oca starch, ketchup, soy sauce, and white pep­per; set aside.

Heat a wok or pan over high heat for 40 sec­onds and add oil. Coat wok with oil using a spat­ula then add onion. Lower heat to medium, and cook until onion turns light brown, about 2 min­utes. Raise heat to high, add pork, and cook, stir­ring, for 2 min­utes. Add wine, and stir to combine.

Stir the reserved stock mix­ture and add it to the pan. Cook, stir­ring, until the sauce thick­ens and turns brown, 1 to 1 1/2 min­utes. Add sesame oil, and stir to com­bine. Trans­fer to a shal­low dish. Cool to room temperature.

Assem­bly:

Pre­heat oven to 375F.

Once the dough has risen for the first time I took small pieces of it and flat­tened it to the size of a small saucer using floured hands so it didn’t stick.

Then take about one heaped table­spoon of the pork fill­ing and place in the cen­ter of the dough disc.

Gather up the sides of the dough disc to form a ball shape enclos­ing the fill­ing.  Be sure to seal the fill­ing inside of the dough or it will leak out.   I placed my buns with the gath­ered seam side down and brushed with a beaten egg to give them a glossy finish.

Place buns on a sheet pan dusted with some flour and bake in the oven for approx­i­mately 15–20 mins depend­ing on your oven.

I served mine with a plum sauce for dip­ping which was a great compliment.

***As I said before, these are a quick cheats way to make pork buns, so if you are look­ing for the tra­di­tional char siu bao, then this recipe prob­a­bly isn’t for you.  It was really a way of using up our left­overs and enjoy­ing the pork in a dif­fer­ent way to how it was first served up.

Source URL: http://www.cakeartisan.com/2009/12/easy-bbq-pork-buns/

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