Baozi Lessons

Today Cara attended a baozi cooking course at a local restaurant renown for their lovely baozi. Baozi is the name for filled buns that are cooked by steaming. Here is what Cara has to say about the experience:

We made (I think) daushabao baozi, which means they had a sweet bean paste filling (very yummy!) The class was organized by the Chinese school that I am attending. About 16 students went all told, though there was only one other person from my specific class.
The picture on the left shows our initial ingredients. These were all prepared by the restaurant chefs before we got there. Each rice dough circle is rolled out individually by hand. We got to watch them make some - no automated mass production here! The dark little balls are the prepared amounts of sweet bean paste. Most baozi have meat fillings (which in China means pork), but meat is harder to work with because it is so soft. The bean pastes are much firmer, so that's what we used. (I was very excited about this since the finished products were going home with each student and Michael and I don't eat pork. But dessert? That we can handle.)

These were a few baozi made by the restaurant's chefs to show us what to aim for. Notice that there are at least 16 creases in each little bun. This is suppose to show a lot of skill. You might also notice the nice smooth round shape of the little guys. This also shows the chefs' skill.

These are my baozi! Notice the lack of uniformity :) Still - I was able to get lots of little creases in the things and actually close them up at the top thereby preventing them from leaking all over the place. For those who don't remember, Michael and I made baozi at home a few months ago - they looked nothing like this. Of course, the restaurant did not allow us to form our own dough shells which Michael and I had to do at home. Also Michael and I used AP flour instead of rice flour. We will try out this new way next time.

This was the chef who was showing me how to form baozi. He can make one in approximately 4.2 seconds. I needed about 4.2 minutes. He was very patient. The restaurant provided at least one chef for every two students. Very helpful. It was pretty funny though since he spoke no English and I knew of no Chinese words that were useful in this situation.
There were my lovely little baozi after they were steamed. Notice how the skin becomes translucent. The rice dough should be thin enough that you can see the meat (or in this case the bean paste) inside. The restaurant packed them up for each student to bring home. mmmmm

After the class all the students were also given portions of a few other desserts to try. First were some baozi just like the ones we made. (I think this was to prevent us from eating our own before taking them home to share.)
We were also tried a pear soup that is suppose to be good and strengthening for people during the winter.

And this is a rice cake with maybe nut like things inside of it and filled with bean paste. It was a little chewy, but it is hard to go wrong with bean paste.