I've been extravagantly cooking taxing Chinese recipes today. Here is the first test result for baozi stuffed with pork, and a recipe that includes changes I'll incorporate the next time I want to spend all day in a kitchen.

Char Siu Bao

2/3 cup warm water, 150g
2 tsp active dry yeast, 8g
1/2 tsp white vinegar
2 tbsp pork fat, oil or shortening
1 cup all purpose flour
3 cups cake flour, I used two parts Softasilk and one part unbleached King Arthur
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
3 tsp water *

1/2 onion minced very fine
200g of char siu pork, finely chopped
1 tsp rice wine
1 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp sesame seed oil
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp corn starch

Stir together water, yeast and a tsp of sugar. Rest till foamy, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile sift together flour and the rest of the sugar into a mixing bowl. Make a well in the center. Stir white vinegar and pork fat into the yeast. Pour slowly into the well, stirring in flour slowly with a fork. After the dough becomes a shaggy mass, knead until the dough is smooth and elastic but still soft. Cover and let rise for about 1hour or until almost doubled.

For the filling, dissolve corn starch in water. Sweat onions in a pan, then turn up the heat. Swirling briefly between the each addition, pour rice wine, oyster sauce, soy and sesame oil. Swirl in cornstarch water and add pork. Lower to simmer and reduce till the sauce is thickened.When dough is ready, dissolve baking powder in 4 tsp water. Push out dough for a large surface area and sprinkle baking powder water on top. Knead again for several minutes, just till baking powder is combined. Cut the dough in 16 pieces. Briefly knead each piece of dough to get a smooth consistency in a round ball then roll them into 3" rounds, tapering the edges, about a scant 1/4 in thick in the center. Dollop one generous tsp of filling and make the bun.Shaping pretty buns are a little tricky, but this video helped me get some basics down. Use your thumb to poke down the filling as you go. Create an upright volcano crater at the top by pleating around the edge and gently twisting and pinching the crater closed with your nail. Make sure they are truly closed or they will erupt like a volcano during cooking. Stick each bun onto a 1.5" square of parchment paper. Let rest while setting up steamer and filling, so the buns can rise a bit more, a little less than 30 minutes. The following batches end up waiting longer, so one way to do it is to time them so you are making and steaming at once.

In any case, put a scant 1/2 inch of water into the bottom of the pot. I use a perforated metal circle that lines the rice pot and then a bamboo steamer, lined with muslin or leafed lettuce, on top. Heat to a high simmer but not an angry boil. Place the buns, without touching the sides or each other, into the covered steamer for about 15 minutes and serve immediately.

To reheat leftover buns, wrap in a moistened paper towel and microwave for 10 seconds or however long it takes for your buns to heat up!

*My dough was slightly yellow because of the flour. In Asia, they apparently use a superwhite low gluten mix that I haven't bothered to look for, Hong Kong brand. I like my bao to be smoother rather than whiter, but I suppose that comes with practice. Also, yellow spots in the dough are a sign that the baking powder has not combined properly. I sprinkled it onto the dough this time, but I think I will try knead more or add it earlier.

 The kind of "char siu bao" that David Chang makes at Momofuku are actually not "bao" (noun), although the process of making them can also be called "bao" (verb) - overly pedantic, I know. The dough, however, is the same as a basic "mantou". Mantou themselves are usually a sweet steamed dough (sometimes steamed and fried) shaped into bun or dinner roll without fillings, while a bao has fillings bundled (as opposed to wrapped) in a discrete package that usually bursts with juices when you bite into it. The Momofuku pork "sandwich" style dish is one I usually only have at formal Chinese dinners, like wedding banquets, and I believe goes by a different name than "bao". Platters of tian mian jiang, a sweet dark paste sometimes substituted with hoisin plum sauce, and slivered green onions are brought to the table with lacquered slices of Peking duck skin.Yes, only the skin, fat rendered away, is brought to the table. Guests brush on the sauce themselves and compose the ingredients inside a plain round of mantou that is folded in half. For the Cantonese and Californians, mantou seems to be the standard, but Peking (or really Beijing) Mandarin style mandates a kind of thin flour "crepe" (made unlike a French Crepe as properly performed in Eat, Drink, Man, Woman). To confuse the issue more, these flat pancakes are referred to as "buo bing" or "bao bing", "bao" in this case meaning thin, as in thin as a crepe. Both styles are really good. The duck breast is served in a separate preparation, sometimes noodle or stir fry, while the carcass makes a rich white soup. Some restaurants serve the duck up to 5 ways, so ordering Peking duck should never be taken lightly and is typically done only as a special occasion treat. These are the moments when I miss my estranged relatives, so I can eat some real Chinese food instead of whatever my vocabulary limits me to. Sigh. In any case, Chang's marketing has got my Google search all confused and I'm not the only one. If you don't live in New York, most major cities ought to have a restaurant that serves at least one rendition of this very classic, distinct dish.