Bao buns with sticky sesame chicken.

From Good Food, Jeremy Pang’s idea. Caught my attention straight away, especially as the buns were not done in 5 hours, but were advertised as “quick”. And indeed, from start to finish, in no particular rush I made us a nice dinner and the buns were declared “the best ever” by Iz. They were made with 200g of self raising flour plus 1,1/2 tsp of baking powder, 2 tbsps caster sugar, a good pinch of salt, all this into the bowl of kitchen aid. To this I added 100 ml of milk mixed with 1 tbsp of sunflower oil and 1tbsp of white wine vinegar, added to the dry ingredients and let the mixer do the work. Within 5-6 minutes there was a lovely, elastic dough ready to cut into 6 balls, which were then flattened into ovals and rolled until something like 0,5 cm thick. A bit of sunflower oil brushed all over the top of each, then folded in half and into the steamer for about 8 minutes, 3 buns at a time.

Now, the sticky chicken was tasty, but it was not a revelation. I thought it needed at least twice as much of the sticky sauce, I would also give it more heat next time. 4 boneless chicken thighs, lightly marinated in soy sauce and sesame oil, baked in the oven, but if they were bbq’d, that would have made a world of difference. That sticky sauce was a mixture of 3 tbsps of soy, 1 tbsp of harissa paste, 1 tsp of white wine vinegar and some sesame oil. It needed more flavour, far too tame!

Once all cooked and ready the buns were assembled with sliced japaneno, coriander, spring onions and sesame seeds, I had to used some hoisin sauce in mine to make it more moist.

4 out of 5, but buns were awesome.