Chinese Pan Fried Buns 生煎包 v.2

Chinese pan fried buns, AKA sheng jian bao（生煎包）, is a very popular Chinese street food across the whole county, especially in the southern parts of China. It constitutes part of my childhood memory and remains one of my favorite traditional dishes.

The buns are filled with juicy pork filling, bottom parts are fried till golden, crispy. Describing it makes me hungry, I am sure you will fall in love with this hearty tasty snack too!
I’ve share a recipe of pan fried buns previously, this one is upgraded with GIFs and a short tutorial video!

Ingredients (serves 2):

For the Dough	For the filling
110-120 g AP flour ~70 ml lukewarm milk/water 1 tsb sugar 1/2 tsb dry yeast pinch of salt	120 g lean ground pork 1 tbs oyster sauce 1 tbs cooking wine 1 tsb sugar 50 ml cold stock sesame oil to taste

Notes:

Amount of liquid required to make the dough may vary, depending on the flour you use, adjust accordingly.
I prefer meat filling with a hint of sweetness, you may omit if desire.
In general, liquid for the dough weighs 60% of flour; amount of ground pork equals flour.

Instructions:

Combine and mix yeast and warm milk/water, let stand for 5 min.
Combine flour, salt and liquid. Then knead with your hand until a smooth, elastic dough forms. You may add extra water/flour during the kneading process, as long as a smooth elastic dough forms at the end.

Place dough in a large bowl, cover with plastic wrap, leave to rise in a warm place until double in size (about 1 hour).
Mix the filling while the dough is rising. Combine ground pork, cooking wine, oyster sauce and sugar, swirl in the same direction until consistent. Then gradually add stock into the mixture.

To ensure the filling is tasty, microwave 1/2 tsb filling until fully cooked. It should taste slightly saltier than usual.
Roll the dough out into a snake shape, divide into 7-8 equal pieces (around 20g each), flatten each piece with the palm of your hand. Roll each piece into a disk-like wrapper (edge thinner than center).

Hold wrapper in your palm. Place filling (as much as possible) in the middle. Seal the buns completely (if the seal looks ugly it’s okay, as long as the bun is fully sealed).
Place buns directly into a greased non stick pan, garnish with black sesame seeds.

Heat the pan and buns over medium heat, cook until the bottom of bun is crispy. Pour in water that levels 1/2 height of buns, cover pan with a lid.
Cook until liquid is completely evaporated, then remove lid. Remove from heat once the bottom becomes crispy again. Garnish with chopped scallion.

I have created a YouTube channel and will be uploading some short tutorials. Watch the video I made, you will know how easy it actually is to make Chinese pan fried buns!