Char Siu Pao (barbeque pork bun)

Char siu paos are a staple in any dimsum place anywhere in the world. While there are many types of paos out there, char siu paos are one of my absolute favourite kind (the other one that I like is the lotus paste paos). I love char siu anything, really. :)

My cooking project today was making char siu paos.
Making the paos is really fun because it's literally fail-proof. I made three dozen mini paos (1 oz dough each) - small enough to be eaten in 3 bites. Char siu paos are not hard to make at all and the process surprisingly didn't take a long time at all. Living in Penang means that ready-cooked char siu is easily found and I won't have to make it from scratch (not like I know how to :p). It took me less than 4 hours, and we had freshly steamed paos for afternoon tea. My lucky friends got fed some paos too since I met up with them for dinner.

Ingredients:
Cooking the filling:
500g char siu (finely cubed)
3 Tbsp char siu dripping
1 Tbsp oyster sauce
3 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp black sauce
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp sesame oil
2 Tbsp roasted sesame seeds
1/2 tsp chicken stock powder
1 Tbsp tapioca flour (diluted in a little bit of water)

Making the bread:
500g superfine, superwhite flour
6g instant yeast
100g sugar (1/2 cup)
50g shortening (1/4 cup)
230g water (10oz)

Directions: 
1. Cook the filling - add in all the ingredients and cook until the char siu is well-coated with the sauces.
2. Mix the flour, instant yeast, shortening, sugar and water together. Remember to make a well in the dry ingredients before pouring in the water.
3. Knead with hand for 10-15 minutes or until the dough becomes smooth and extensible.
4. Scale the dough to 1oz each. Or 1 1/2oz if you want a bigger pao. Round each portion and leave to rest for 10 minutes.
5. Flatten the dough, scoop in about a teaspoon of filling and wrap by folding the edge of the dough. Give the top of the pao a little twist.
6. Place each dough on a small piece of grease-proof paper.
7. Allow the doughs to rest for 20 minutes before steaming.
8. Put the dough pieces in a heated steamer and steam for 10 minutes.

The paos were extremely tasty, especially when nice and warm, freshly out of the steamer. And might I add very healthy because I used lean meat, no colouring and no emulsifiers. Maybe that explains why the pao bread texture wasn't as soft and fluffy after it turned cold.