Steamed Chinese Bao With Peanut Butter
[Vegan]

Steamed Chinese Bao with Peanut Butter [Vegan]

This could well be sacrilege, and honestly, I’m pretty OK with that possibility. Here in Japan, these buns are on the counter of every convenience store, kept hot, steamy, and pure white – and, FYI, they are as incredibly soft and satisfying as they look, pillowy and fresh. They’re also,... This could well be sacrilege, and honestly, I’m pretty OK with that possibility. Here in Japan, these buns are on the counter of every convenience store, kept hot, steamy, and pure white – and, FYI, they are as incredibly soft and satisfying as they look, pillowy and fresh. They’re also, usually, filled with pork – 肉まん or nikuman: meat buns. That’s not so cool. There are anman, with sweet red bean paste, but vegans cannot live on sweets alone (or so my mother tells me, anyway. Challenge accepted, mom). Unfortunately – for now, anyway – if we want to eat non-nikuman, we pretty much have to make them ourselves. Either that, or we can stage loud protests outside Japanese grocery stores, but I don’t really want to be deported just yet. You might know these as Chinese bao, steamed buns – you might know them with no filling at all – or you might not know them. If that’s the case, let me introduce you. Above: bao with peanut butter. Though for this batch, I also filled buns with sweet chili hummus, natto (Japanese fermented soy beans – it doesn’t half stink, but I still like it, mostly to prove a point to Japanese people), vanilla-maple chestnut paste, peanut butter, sweet potato jam, and pb&j. OK, I may have gotten a touch carried away. These may not be traditional, but they’re really freaking good – I'm pointing you towards the peanut butter ones as they were my runaway winners and make fantastic breakfast food with a banana alongside, though the vanilla-maple chestnut ones are a perfect seasonal brunch. The savory buns are like self-contained, grab-and-go sandwiches, and I want to fill one with roasted, mashed butternut squash so much right now that I might just start another batch of dough and make that happen. And hello, plain bao used as a hamburger bun, with a teriyaki tofu ‘burger’? Yes please. These do contain yeast – don’t freak out! – so there is a couple of hours rising time, but hands-on work is very simple, and forming the buns themselves is easy as anything. Also: two minute cooking time. I’m just sayin’. Read More