Char Siu Bao The minced pork recipe looks like this: Ingredients: 3 1/2 cups very finely chopped pork 2-5 tung ku (dong gu) mushrooms 2 1/2 Tbsp very finely chopped scallions 1 med onion, very finely chopped 2 cloves garlic, very finely chopped 6 Tbsp cooking oil Sauce: 3 Tbsp sweet soybean paste 3 Tbsp soy sauce 1 Tbsp sugar 1 Tbsp rice wine 1 Tbsp sesame seed oil a generous pinch of salt a generous pinch of freshly ground black pepper 1 Tbsp (heaping) of cornstarch Dough: 7 cups all-purpose unbleached flour 2 1/2 Tbsp sugar (I usually use additional sugar which I mix into the flour for sweeter dough) 2 cups warm water 1 Tbsp compressed yeast or 1 tsp dried yeast 3 Tbsp shortening (I usually skip this) To make the dough: Mix the sugar and yeast gently with the lukewarm water; when it foams it is ready to use. Dried yeast will take a little longer to reactivate. Melt the shortening (or butter, etc) and mix into the flour, stirring thoroughly to distribute it evenly. Make a well in the center, pour the yeast mixture into it and gradually mix into the flour until very smooth and soft. Knead for up to 10 minutes (I usually knead longer). Cover the dough with a clean, damp cloth and leave in a warm place until tripled in bulk (I usually stick it in an oven which has been warmed and cover it with cheesecloth that has been soaked in hot water, but not dripping wet). This can take up to 4 hours. Knock down the dough, knead briefly (it'll be pretty sticky, but a little flour on the kneading surface should deal with it just fine after a while). Shape it into a long sausage or two of about 1 1/2" in diameter. Cut this into 1 1/2" sections and roll each piece into a ball, then press each ball with the heel of your hand to flatten it into a disk. While the dough is rising, soak the dried mushrooms in warm water for ~20 minutes or longer until they are soft and plumped up. Drain the mushrooms and cut off the stalks and discard the stalks. Chop the caps into small pieces. Fry the scallions, onions, and garlic briefly. Then add the meat and stir-fry; add the mushrooms and stir-fry everything together for 5 more minutes. Add all the sauce ingredients, stir well, and cook for a while to allow some of the liquid to boil off/evaporate. Mix the cornstarch with a small amount of water and add it to the mixture (oh yes, it should always be cooking on high) and stir well. This should thicken quickly, and you can stop cooking it afterwards. Place a little spoonful of the filling in the center of each of the round disks of dough, bring the edges up and over the filling and pinch them together gently so they seal (and don't separate when you steam them). If you add too much filling, the oils from the sauce will keep the dough from sealing (and it'll be a mess both then and afterwards). You should place each bun on a piece of wax paper and then into a steamer compartment; you can probably stack quite a few of the compartments up and steam them all at once (covered at the top) for about 10 minutes, with the water gently simmering (but when covered, it's actually boiling and producing a decent amount of steam -- I usually just keep it near medium-high). Remove from the compartments and serve hot. --------- This particular recipe is a variant from "The Great Book of Chinese Cooking", with some modifications. It's essentially what my parents use when they make the same; I tried a recent variant two weeks ago, just for fun. BBQ pork, or "Char Siu Zhu Rou" is a bit different; you'll need to prepare that separately -- essentially it's large chunks of pork that have been marinated in a special "Char Siu" marinade (you can pick it up from a store or make your own) overnight, though you may need to pierce the pork with a fork to get the sauce to go in deep enough... and then roasted in the oven until done. The pork cuts are usually a touch fatty also. You can pick this up at most Chinese markets and restaurants that sell prepared meats. You can just cut that up and use that with the sauce instead of ground pork.