Char Siew Baos

CS baos of all shapes and sizes.... LOL

I'm a lover of char siew baos.... of course given the chance, I'll love to try making some myself. However, somehow or rather, the to-do list kept getting longer and char siew baos were pushed right to the bottom. It doesn't help that baos are readily available, esp at my fav stalls! I remembered picking up a pack of Hong Kong flour on impulse (no surprise here) and it's been kept in the pantry for the longest time. While clearing my pantry that day, I came across the pack of flour and decided I've had enuf of procrastinating.... as I did not have any char siew on hand, I decided to try making mantous instead. It turned out a disaster! ( so folks, no pics of the failed mantous here)

With my confidence taken a beating on the failed attempt of mantous, I had to do more research abt making char siew baos. I bought a strip of char siew from a stall that sells roast duck 2 days ago. (i know very well that if i intend to make my own char siew, the baos will definately not see daylight at all! LOL). Then I looked thru some forums and online for recipes. Finally settled on a recipe that required alot of patience! It involved a dough starter and all the work for the dough alone will take 3 days. I decided on this recipe 'coz of the good reviews and also I was thinking, the resulting baos shd be really good if the dough needed 3 days of poofing! Furthermore, the 1st 2 days of the dough preparation involved very little work. I could do it at nite b4 I hit the bed, which suited me perfectly fine!

However, I realised that my char siew filling was not sufficient for the amt of dough I made. So I bought some more char siew at the wet market for more filling for the remaining dough.

So here I present my char siew baos... of all shapes and sizes! LOL.....

I'm rewarded with decent enuf baos, nice texture but my shaping skills are lousy and the baos were rather hard after left to cool off completely. hm.... I guess I've to move on to another recipe for my next try or simply buy them off the shelves next time a craving hits!One of the more nicely shaped baos...

The interior of the bao... I love the sauce tho', albeit abit salty.