BBQ Pork Bun

Put a piece of ginger in water to remove fishy smell, when water boils, blanch the meat for 1 minute, then remove and rinse with cold water.

You can skip blanching, but blanching makes it easier to cut into cubes.

Cut the meat into small cubes for later use, crush one slice of ginger and two garlic cloves.

Mix the sauce, add light soy sauce/dark soy sauce/char siu sauce/oyster sauce/honey to clean water, mix well.

Pour a little oil into the wok, stir-fry ginger and garlic over low heat until fragrant, add the meat cubes and stir-fry for 5 minutes.

When slightly oily, pour in the prepared sauce.

Don't cover, simmer over medium-low heat for about 20 minutes, until the sauce reduces to large bubbles.

Remove the ginger and garlic, taste the saltiness.

If too salty, add some sugar to balance, if the color is not deep enough, add more dark soy sauce for color.

Thicken: Mix water + starch into slurry and pour in.

Mix quickly to avoid clumping.

Stir-fry for a while, when the slurry becomes transparent, turn off the heat.

Turn off the heat and remove, let it cool completely, then refrigerate until solidified.

This also makes the meat cubes more flavorful.

Knead the dough: Add yeast powder/baking powder/granulated sugar/milk/water to flour.

It's recommended to buy a kitchen scale for standardized measurements and higher success rate.

Mix with chopsticks into flaky pieces.

If you don't have a scale, visually judge the flaky state like this - all flaky, no extra dry flour.

Cover and let stand for 5 minutes before kneading, let the flour absorb water.

After standing, knead into a ball in the bowl, use the heel of your palm with force.

It's normal for the water and flour to not be well integrated yet, feeling dry and hard, don't easily add extra water.

Move to a cutting board and knead with the heel of your palm for 5 minutes, push out... gather... push out... gather, repeat this action.

Cross your hands for enough force.

Knead until the dough is smooth and not sticky, put back in the bowl, add a small spoon of lard, about 10g.

Lard can be replaced with odorless vegetable oil.

Knead until the oil is absorbed.

Move to the cutting board and continue folding kneading for one or two minutes.

Roll into a long strip, then fold in three, roll long again and fold in three, repeat three times or more, the dough will be very smooth.

At this point the dough is very soft and not sticky, check the cut surface, if it's fine without air holes, you can finish kneading.

For 400g of flour, generally divide the kneaded dough in half, use half immediately for portioning and wrapping, put the other half in the refrigerator to slow down fermentation.

Take half the dough and roll into a long strip, sprinkle dry flour to prevent sticking. Half the dough can make 7-8 buns.

Divide into portions, 7-8 portions.

Try not to use cutting, cutting leaves knife marks that will show when rolling.

Roll all portions and flatten them, apply hand flour.

Apply hand flour, roll into bun wrappers that are thick in the middle and thin on the edges.

Put in the char siu filling and wrap well.

Each pleat should be pinched deep.

Close the opening, finally gather it up.

This makes the bun more three-dimensional, not flat.

A 28cm bamboo steamer can hold 7 buns per layer, two layers is 14 buns.

Keep some distance when placing, otherwise they will stick together after steaming and expanding.

If it's summer and room temperature is around 30°C, you can ferment at room temperature directly, below 30°C you can sit in warm water to ferment.

Generally 30-40 minutes can ferment to 1.5-2 times the original size.

When the buns are plump and light, 1.5-2 times larger than before fermentation, they're ready to steam.

You can steam with cold water or warm water, steam over medium-high heat for 15 minutes, turn off the heat, let sit for 2 minutes before opening the lid.

For leftovers, when cooled to slightly warm to the touch, immediately put in a plastic bag to avoid the surface drying out.

When the weather is hot, meat buns should be frozen in the refrigerator to avoid spoilage, reheat when eating.