Authentic recipes and fascinating tales from one of China's most vibrant culinary regions. Fuchsia Dunlop is the author of the much-loved and critically acclaimed Sichuanese cookbook Land of Plenty, which won the British Guild of Food Writers' Jeremy Round Award for best first book and which critic John Thorne called "a seminal exploration of one of China's great regional cuisines."
In the south of Changsha, a small park surrounds Tianxinge, the tower on the last remaining section of the Ming dynasty city walls, which somehow survived the devastating fire of 1938. Early in the morning, people go there to dance or to practice tai qi, and the snack sellers congregate around the entrance. We walked up to an old-fashioned teahouse perched at the top of the hill, where a crowd of retired men and women were playing games over breakfast. There we drank mugs of green tea, and ate steamed buns stuffed with pork and salted chiles, and glutinous rice dumplings studded with cured meat and shrimp.
Most of the old teahouses of Changsha have been demolished with the modernization of the city, including the Deyuan, which was famous for the generous size and delicious flavor of its steamed bao zi buns. Founded in 1875 as a snack store, it later evolved into an elegant establishment that served not only stuffed buns and steamed breads, but also all kinds of banquet delicacies cooked in the grand mandarin style. It was best known, however, for its bao zi, stuffed with a variety of fillings, including pork and shiitake, candied rose petal, yellow lump sugar and salted greens, sesame paste, and char sin barbecued pork. Sadly, having survived revolutions, civil war, burning, and a communist makeover in the l950s, the Deyuan was finally bulldozed in the early 2000s. The following recipe is based on the buns that we ate in the Tianxinge park on that cool spring morning.
Makes about 20 dumplings
FOR THE STUFFING:
1/4 in. piece fresh ginger, unpeeled and smashed
7 oz. ground pork
2 tbsp. chopped salted chiles
1/4 tsp. sesame oil
FOR THE DOUGH:
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, with a little extra for dusting
3/4 tsp. active-dry yeast
2 tsp. sugar
4 tbsp. lukewarm water
a little peanut oil
To make the stuffing, smash the ginger with the fiat of a cleaver blade, cover with about 5 tablespoons cold water, and leave to infuse for a minute or two.
Place the pork in a bowl. Add the ginger-infused water (straining out the ginger). Use your hand to mix the water into the pork, picking it up and slapping it against the bottom of the bowl to encourage the meat to absorb the water. Add the chiles and sesame oil and mix well. Place in the freezer for about 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, to make the dough, place the flour in a bowl. Mix the yeast and sugar with the water and stir to dissolve. Add the yeast mixture to the flour with enough lukewarm water to make a stiff but moist dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured countertop and knead for about 10 minutes until it is smooth and glossy. Cover with a wet cloth and set aside at room temperature for about 10 minutes.
Roll the dough into 2 long sausages, each about 1 1/4 inches thick. Break or cut this dough into about twenty 1 1/4-inch pieces and dust very lightly with flour.
Smear the bottom of a steamer with a little oil to prevent sticking.
To fill and shape the bao zi, take a piece of dough and flatten it slightly with the palm of your hand, so you have a plump disc. Then use a rolling pin to roll it out into a 2 1/4 inch circle. It is best to make small rolling movements toward the middle of the circle) turning it as you go, so you end up with a disk that is slightly fatter in the middle (this will help the wrapper to keep its shape when you add the filling). Cradle the disk of rolled dough in one hand) and add 1 tablespoon filling in the middle, smoothing it down with a knife blade. Then use your other hand to make small pinching movements around the edge of the filling, turning the dumpling as you go. You should end up with a ball-shaped dumpling with a whorl-like pattern on the top. (Ask a Chinese friend to demonstrate this process if you can!)
Place the finished dumpling onto the oiled steamer. Repeat with the rest of the dough and filling. When the dumplings are ready, set aside for 20 minutes at room temperature until the dough has risen.
Finally, steam the dumplings over a high heat for 15 minutes, by which time they should be cooked through—break one in half to make sure. Serve immediately.
