It was a bao bun kind of day

 

Last Friday, I woke up in the morning and decided that it was going to be a bad bun kind of day. I've made the meat buns several times (they were yummy but really ugly because your gal hasn't quite gotten how to pleat them properly yet) and also did the sweet custard buns. But I never tried making the flat sandwich bao buns.

And apparently last Friday was the day to try. Yep...your gal can be spontaneous sometimes. And also because her bao flour was expiring soon. *LOL*

Anyway, I did time it so that I could serve them for lunch..which included two proves and time to steam the bao buns in batches in my really small steamer. You would think that I own one of those bamboo steamers with several layers right? Nope. I can only steam 5 buns at each time. They need to steam for 12 minutes, then the fire is turned off and the buns have to stay in the steamer for 5 minutes with the lid on. Apparently if you open the lid too soon, you would get flat buns. Instead of fluffy soft ones. 

I did have trouble getting them to be the same size because the dough stretched during handling. But I was   really happy when I opened the lid to see fluffy buns! 

(I know you will share in my excitement friends...*winks* my family will just be like, "why didn't you just buy the frozen ones from the supermarket?" *hahaha* Yep, they will eat the processed stuff if I gave it to them but I like to make stuff from scratch..with better ingredients...and no preservatives).

I used the steaming time to stir-fry my pork loin and cut the cucumber and tomatoes. And make my sticky gochujang sauce to go with the filling. They turned out really yummy. And I would say make the buns...they are so much better than the frozen supermarket ones.

Lots of upcyling bits cut out from packaging and happy mail. 

Have you tried making bao buns?