Sunday, March 29, 2009

Welcome to Asian Week!


Welcome to Asian Week on the Cooking Dunkin Style Blog!

Today I bring you Hum Bao, or Banh Baoa (the proper Viet name for it), a wonderful Asian appetizer which you can fill with just about anything you wish. I am a traditionalist and use what I am used to eating, hard boiled egg, Chinese sausage, regular sausage, and peas!

My favorite website, FoodofVietnam.com has this to say about it "Banh bao (bánh bao in Vietnamese) is a ball shaped dumpling with pork meat, onions, eggs, mushrooms and vegetables inside. The steamed bun often has ground pork, Chinese sausage and a portion of a hard boiled egg inside. This delicacy originated with the baozi from China but was adapted by the Vietnamese and is also available in most other countries with Vietnamese populations.

I had always wanted to learn this recipe/method from my Vietnamese family but it never worked out, so I finally taught myself. These are a bit labor intensive, but I assure you, they are worth the effort! You will need to visit a Vietnamese store to get the Chinese Sausage and the Flour Mixture.

2 hard boiled eggs, diced
2 links Chinese sausage (they are long, thin and will be in the frozen meat aisle), diced small
1/2 lb of regular sausage
1/2 onion
2 cloves of garlic minced
3 green onions, ends removed and chopped
1/4 to 1/2 bag of frozen peas
salt and white pepper
Low Sodium soy Sauce

1 package Bahn Bao Mixed Flour, I have used the D&D Gold brand with great success. Tell your Storekeeper what you are making and they will direct you to the dough mix

In a non stick pan, saute your sausage, add your onion and garlic about half way thru cooking, continue to cook until no longer pink

Drain excess grease and remove to a bowl and add your diced Chinese Sausage

Add in your peas, green onions, dash of salt and pepper

Add in 2 to 3 tbl of Oyster Sauce several dashes of low sodium Soy Sauce, and mix well, set aside

Follow the directions on the flour package, kneading and resting and kneading again

Roll into one long log, cut in half and each half cut into 3rds, you want 12 equal pieces of dough (I weigh them with my food scale)

Roll each one out into a circle about 3 inches by 3 inches

Now is the hard part, place the circle into the palm of your hand, add a heaping tablespoon of the filling mixture and a piece of hard boiled egg, and carefully bring the edges together at the top and pinch to close

You will have to work the dough a bit to get it to stretch up and around the filling and seal at the top. Don't worry if it does not seal all the way, they normally will break open when steaming anyway

Steam in a double boiler for 20 minutes (only steam about 4 at a time as they EXPAND quite a bit during the steaming process)

Serve with Soy and Sweet Chili Sauce

19 comments:

Debbie said...

They sound wonderful and look delicious. That is a great picture. I would love to try these sometime. I think I would love them...

Netts Nook said...

Cheryl I love them. When I went to college in Hawaii had them every day.Yours look great. How is your tat?

Anonymous said...

oh man...I LOOOOVE steamed buns...they are so cute! actually, you can tell I love them because my profile pic is a steamed bun! ha!

Katherine Roberts Aucoin said...

This look so delicious Cheryl. We recently found and ASian grocery, now I have my excuse to go there. I would love to try thes dumplings!

Pam said...

Mmmm. Looks and sounds delicious Cheryl.

Dewi said...

This is very impressive Cheryl, the bun looks really delicious. I like the filing too.
Cheers,
elra

Unknown said...

Hey, girl, what a super cool recipe. I in a city full of Asian markets, heck, any kind of markets. You know there is a reason we are one of the fattest cities every year!
Good Luck on your first big cake. I can hardly wait to see it. I am gonna post my "Cake Wreck"-worthy creation soon. For me, I was sorta proud, but for the cake artists, I can see the reason for shaking of the heads.

The Blonde Duck said...

That's really neat! I've never heard of this before!

Maria said...

Asian week, Yahoo! Off to a good start!

MaryBeth said...

Looks great...I know Ed would be all over these in a heart beat!

Donna-FFW said...

Asian week I am so excited.. This looks fabulous.. I am a little upset, I am not getting your updates on my blogroll.. any idea why??

Paula said...

I am so impressed that you made these! I love them, but they seem so mysterious to me as to how they make them! Looking forward to Asian week! YUM!

Foodiewife said...

I've always been intrigued with steamed buns, and I've never had them. Actually, I'm still scratching the surface on making any kind of Asian food. These look beautiful. I'll have to strongly consider conquering my fear of making something like this-- these are lovely!

Heather said...

i will definitely have to check out that blog. this looks amazingly delicious!

Christina Kim said...

oh I just love steamed buns!! Cheryl, are you Vietnamese? Just curious about when you said, "my Vietnamese family."

Elyse said...

OH MY GAH. These look so good. I am super psyched for Asian week. I've never really cooked much Asian food before (with the exception of some Thai dishes). I can't wait to keep reading!

Jan said...

Wow, Cheryl, these look incredible. Great job! I'm looking forward to more Asian recipes.

NuKiwi said...

Any type of dumpling is pretty much good with me! What a nice idea...looks yummy

Peasblog said...

this is how my mom and I make them egg, Chinese sausage and peas!!!

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