Steamed Pork and Roast Carrot Buns (Baozi 包子)

Preparation

Prep carrots

Preheat your oven to 400°F. On a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, pour 2 tbsp olive oil on your carrots, season with salt to taste, and place in the oven for 25 minutes until soft and can be pierced through easily with a fork.

Mix Dough

While the carrots are in the oven, prepare your dough. Activate your yeast in 1 1/2 cups of warm water. Place all your dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl, pour activated yeast and water into the bowl and mix until it forms clumps. Then, knead with your hands for 10 minutes until the dough is smooth like a baby's butt. Cover and proof for 1 hour.

Make Filling

When the carrots are ready, remove from oven and place into a bowl. With a fork, mash carrots until it has small, even chunks. Combine carrots with the pork and remaining filling ingredients and with your hands, mix all that juicy meat mixture goodness together. Use a circular motion with your fingers until the filling looks homogenous and sticky, about 3 minutes.

Make wrappers

Lightly dust a work surface with flour. When your dough is ready, take out of plastic wrap and cut into half. Store one half with plastic wrap, then with the other piece, cut in half again. Roll both halves into two thin cylinders, about the size and shape of small hot dogs. Cut each cylinder into 6 equal pieces, they should look like marshmellows. Then, turn each piece cut side up and with the palm of your hand, press down onto it to flatten to make a roughly flattened circle. Dust each side with flour and then with a rolling pin, flatten to create a circular wrapper to desired thickness, about an 1/8 of an inch - not too thin but not too thick. Repeat with the rest of your marshmellow dough pieces until you have a bunch of wrappers. Make sure to flour each wrapper as you roll them out and then cover with plastic wrap so they don't dry out.

Fold and seal buns

You can fold the baos however you'd like and have fun with it! For a classic circular fold, place a spoonful of meat in the center of your flattened dough. Then pleat around the meat with small fold, pushing the meat down as the wrapper starts to close in around it. Seal the bao and set aside.

Steam and serve

If steaming — In a bamboo steamer place parchment paper underneath each bao (or get steamer liners with holes in them) and place bao on top. Place your steamer with bao on top of a shallow pot with boiling water. Steam for 15 minutes until cooked through, serve.

Storage tips

Bao stores great in the freezer! Just cook as you would nomrally and let them cool a little bit. Put them straight in the freezer in a ziploc bag. When ready, just cook them in a steamer for 5-10 minutes until cooked through, or microwave a bun wrapped in a wet paper towel for 1 minute.