Brisket Bao Bun Fun

Posted On 5 February 2023

It’s something I’ve wanted to make for ages. But it’s a recipe that takes time… For example, I wanted mainly to do beef brisket bao buns, and the brisket alone was going to take a long time. I did recently get a pressure cooker, so I considered using that, but as it happens, the way the day went I knew I’d be able to just leave the brisket slowly cooking in the oven.

So… whilst this isn’t a full on “recipe website” I’ll write this up in a way that should make it easy for you to replicate (ish) what I did. I say ish because I forgot to note down the spice mix for the brisket so it’s from memory. Pretty sure it’s reasonably accurate and I’d be happy committing to using the exact ingredients for myself another time…

For the Brisket

I totally forgot to get photos of this. But it was epic.

So I got a 1kg rolled piece of brisket from the butchers, and unrolled it. I chopped it into about 6 equal chunks. I then coated it in:

• Paprika (2-3 tbsp)
• Garlic Salt (3 tsp)
• Black Pepper (1tsp)
• White Pepper (1tsp)
• Brown muscovado sugar (150g)
• Olive Oil (about 50ml, enough that when mixed it formed a sort of paste)

Then rubbed that into all the brisket, and let it marinade for around 2 hours. I then put it on a rack on a deep baking tray, which was filled about 1/3 of the way with water and then fully covered with foil – making sure the edges were as tight as possible to keep the moisture in. Then it went in the oven on Gas Mark 2 / 150c for around 8 hours. I then let it rest for about an hour, and ‘pulled’ it apart. It basically just came apart in my hands; I then mixed in some BBQ sauce.

For the Bao Buns

So I used a couple of recipes online to inspire me on the recipe for this.

I used:

• 1.1kg of flour
• 1stp salt
• 5tsp of caster sugar
• 2 packs of fast-action dried yeast
• 100ml milk
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 2 tsp baking powder

To make it, I:

1. Boiled the kettle and poured out 400ml of water. I let it cool until it was tepid, and added the sugar. Once dissolved fully, I added the yeast and stirred gently until dissolved. Then give it a few minutes for the yeast to foam/bubble – and then poured that into the flour mix, also adding the salt, milk, oil, and vinegar but don’t add the baking powder yet.
   
2. Mix everything together into a dough, and then knead it until it’s smooth and elastic, which should take around 10mins or so. Depends how hard you knead it, I guess.
   
3. Once you’re happy with it, place it in a bowl and cover with a damp cloth. If you can, leave it for around two hours… I ended up not having that much time, so I only left it for an hour.
   
4. Knead the dough again but this time add the baking powder. Again this will take you a good 5 minutes to get it back to being really soft and smooth.
   
5. Cut into 50g chunks. I made around 30 balls of dough. I then cut 30 squares of baking paper – about 1/3 of the width of a sheet of baking paper each. Take each ball of dough, and roll it out into an oval shape. I then brushed them with oil, and used a skewer (brushed with oil) as a way to fold the bao bun in half.
   
6. I then let them sit for another hour, before firing up the steamer and steaming them in batches. They steamed for 8 minutes.
   
7. My friend, whilst I was doing that (but this could obviously be done whilst waiting for them to prove the second time) chopped the cucumber and spring onion.
   
8. Once steamed, we served immediately, and ate until we were crammed full of Bao Bun goodness.

My own little write up on it

So I’m doing this post a little different for the first time, to try and make it easy for people to read/understand the recipe. This was definitely one I’d do again, one I’d recommend, although I would definitely give it longer to prove if I could. Ideally, around 2 hours in total the first time and an hour and a half the second time. I think that would make them just that bit fluffier – as they were a touch dense.

On to the important bit, the photos…!!

The buns on once I’d finished folding them, whilst they were waiting to prove:

Then, after about 45mins:

You can see they do look larger, and they were really soft to the touch, but they could have done with a lot more time I think.

So on top of the brisket, I also got some Crispy Aromatic Duck from the supermarket (took the lazy option) which was what the spring onion and cucumber was for:

They were seriously tasty. Not quite “Gordon Ramsay’s Lucky Cat” tasty, but tasty nonetheless. Then we had the brisket ones, which were: BBQ Sauce on the bottom of the bao bun, the brisket, a gherkin, mustard on the top…. Oh my… I could eat this all day long:

Then, to mix it up (and why not, eh?) I had a brisket with hoi sin sauce, cucumber and spring onion:

So overall:

Brisket: 10/10 – I mean OK … it could have been slightly better, I’d have preferred it to be smoked, but that cooking method was bang on – it was perfect.

Bao Buns: 6/10 – they were great, but a lot of room for improvement. I also ran out of plain flour and had to substitute some strong flour as well as 00 flour… so I wonder how it would have come out if I’d had the right flour and given it much longer to prove. I’ll still do this again, and again, and again though!