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sticky pork bao buns
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5 from 1 vote

Sticky Pork Bao Buns

Prep Time1 hour
Cook Time2 hours 30 minutes
Course: Side Dish
Cuisine: Chinese
Servings: 5 Bao Buns
Author: Emily Roz

Ingredients

For the dough

  • 275g plain flour
  • 1 teaspoon dried yeast
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 tablespoon sugar
  • 175 ml warm milk
  • pinch of salt

For the pork belly

  • 1 pack of 4-5 pieces of pork belly
  • 2 tablespoon sugar
  • 2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
  • 1 inch fresh ginger, sliced
  • 2 star anise
  • 50ml shaoxing wine
  • 3 tablespoon soy sauce
  • 1 teaspoon Chinese five spice
  • 1 teaspoon pepper
  • 100ml water

Pork Belly Sauce

  • ½ teaspoon fresh ginger, minced
  • 1 teaspoon garlic, minced
  • 1 teaspoon chilli flakes
  • 1 teaspoon honey
  • 1 tablespoon soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
  • 1 tablespoon sesame oil

Toppings

  • ¼ cucumber, julienned
  • 2 spring onions, julienned
  • small bunch of coriander
  • 1 red chilli, thinly sliced

Instructions

For the dough

  • In a bowl, combine your flour, yeast, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Then gently pour in your warm milk and stir continuously with a wooden spoon or chopsticks to form a dough. Add more water if the dough is too dry.
  • Transfer your dough onto a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes. Add more flour if the dough is too wet. Transfer your dough back into the bowl, cover with clingfilm or a tea towel and place in a warm, dry area for 2 to 3 hours (or until grown in size).
  • Now move onto your sticky pork! Then, come back to this once the pork is in the oven.
  • Once your dough has proven, roll it out into a large circle around ⅓ inch thick. Use a circular cutter to cut out 5 pieces of dough around 2-3 inches in diameter.
  • Brush some oil onto one side of the dough circles and then fold the dough in half and gently press down using a rolling pin. Repeat this process and then place the half-moon doughs onto little pieces of baking paper. Cover and leave to prove for a further 30 minutes. (Check out my tutorial on Instagram if you're struggling with this part).
  • (Once your pork is ready)...Place the bao buns into the steamer and steam for 8 minutes. Remove and then assemble your dumpling.

For the pork belly

  • Pre-heat the oven to 180/160C fan. Get an oven-proof pan, place it on medium heat, and drizzle a little bit of oil into it. Grab your chopped pork belly pieces and transfer them into the pan. Fry for 5 minutes to golden each side of the pork belly. Pour in the rest of the pork belly ingredients (sugar, garlic cloves, ginger, star anise, shaoxing wine, soy sauce, chinese 5 spice, pepper, and water). Give it a good stir, place a lid on top of the dish, and then transfer into the oven for 2 hours. Then remove the lid and place back into the oven for a further 30 minutes. Feel free to add in a touch more water if you think that it's beginning to burn. Don't confuse colouring with burning though! As long as there's about an inch of liquid at the bottom, you're all good!
  • Remove the pork belly from the oven and set aside.

Pork belly sauce

  • In a bowl, combine the pork belly sauce ingredients. Then add in your pork belly and mix well. Your pork is now ready to go!

Assembling the Gua Bao

  • Get your bao (bun) and open it up. Place in a tablespoon of pork belly, a little bit of spring onion, cucumber, chilli, coriander, and top it off with some extra pork belly sauce. Repeat this for all of the bao buns and then serve up and enjoy!