How Japan's Most Popular Steamed Buns are Made in Japan

Sponsored by squarespace This is how one of Japan's most popular steam buns are made in Japan Intro Music so today we are in Osaka Japan I'm excited for this one because I get to take you inside of a factory and show you how one of Japan's most popular steam buns are made in Japan The awesome folks at Go Go Ichi Horai have given me access to take you on this adventure today But like always if you guys want to see what I'm doing on the daily check out my Instagram account if you guys want to help support the channel check out the Japan merch and if you have any questions about Japan or Japan travel check out my discord community Alright let me take you on this factory tour Go Go Ichi Horai craft ultra popular handwrapped bhutaman aka pork buns In Japan selling 170,000 pork buns each and everyday In 1945 they established their first restaurant in Namba Osaka birth its steamed pork buns the following year and has since grown to 58 stores located only in Japan's Kansai region It now employs 1500 staff working hard every day to craft their delicious pork buns as well as other popular chinese food Yup !! You heard me right I'm gonna also show you how chinese food is made in Japan so I made it in the factory it's time to change and there you go all changed now we gotta find someone to help me get inside Hi ! Can I go inside with you ? Go Go Ichi steam pork buns are known by many Japanese as an Osaka signature souvenir But it's more than just Damn !! I can't wait to take you on this factory tour and show you how it's all made so this is where they make all the dough all of the ingredients come down from the ceiling and go into this mixer so this is where it all begins Wether Neta In english, dough The dough used to create their steamed buns is made every day and shipped out four separate times on that day to ensure the freshest dough possible is used in their shops In fact the central kitchen never carries stock but always prepares only as much as each store requires one of their secrets to making the perfectly sweet and sticky buns is in their maturing process delivery distances and times for each shop is carefully calculated and used as a base to mature their dough as it starts rising immediately after it's kneeded taken one step further their dough is crafted to have three different maturing times by varying the temperature of water used for each shops order a specific dough so that when it's used it's always perfectly matured a reason why all 58 of their stores are within 150 minute distance from their central kitchen [Music] Hi, Can i ask you a question? what up dough ? What do you like about the dough? Do you make any adjustments by hand ? What's the most challenging part of the job ? Music Playing Okay, let's get to the center of this bun all the meat for the steam buns are delivered to this loading dock and also weighed here to ensure deliveries are accurate after the deliveries are confirmed all the frozen meat is hand inspected to ensure quality and safety depending on the time the factory can receive up to five tons of meat in one day That's a lot of meat to thoroughly inspect his hands must get really cold Hi, Can I ask what you are doing now ? What do you check for? so what happens if it doesn't pass the inspection ? all right so we're on a different floor now let's see what's happening over here now let's see what's happening over here so in this room right here they cut all the onions and you can really feel it and my eyes are tearing right now WOW That's a lot of onions I guess it makes sense though when you're making 170,000 pork buns a day The onions arrive already peeled so they're simply washed in the pool by this machine In fact the main two ingredients for the steam buns are pork and onions which may surprise many who've tasted it as Go Go Ichi's pork buns give off a distinctive and strong appetizing aroma without using ingredients such as garlic and finally diced to perfection but into relatively larger pieces to enhance the taste and aroma appeal of their pork buns ultimately helping to create their signature flavor once chopped the onions are transported to the second floor of the factory via this elevator to be mixed with the pork but before we go there let's chop it up with this guy Excuse me, What are you doing ? Won't you eyes hurt? What's the most challenging part of the job ? Oh, he has to detect the outer skin as well as a transparent inner skin How long have you been working here ? This place is so big I'm getting kind of lost but let's see what's behind this door so in this section just behind me It looks like they minced the meat if it's not clear already Go Go Ichi filled their buns with pork which is why they distinctively call their steamed buns Butaman Buta meaning pork instead of the more general term in Japan,Nikuman nico meaning meat their pork is made from a blend of thigh arm belly and back fat The meat itself is purposely cut when frozen to prevent oxidation and similar to the onions the machines dice their pork into large pieces to help accentuate the taste overall producing a meatier texture and a juicier umami [Music] [Music] now all the ingredients for the filling are combined mixed and seasoned [Music] three giant vat's of meat are seasoned with soy sauce and their special spice mixture consisting of simple ingredients such as sugar,salt and pepper but the true secret is in the ratio in fact their pork bun recipe hasn't changed since it was first created over 75 years ago so to this day the factory strictly adheres to the original recipe let's see what this guy is doing Hi nice to meet you , what are you doing ? What's the most challenging part of the job ? Is there anything you really need to watch out for ? So how long do you need to mix ? Oh there's the vat of freshly diced onions from earlier it gets mixed in with a seasoned pork starch is then added to help bind them together [Music] one of the keys to this recipe is to maintain the filling's meaty texture by not over mixing so it's critical for the workers to precisely stop the machine each time [Music] after the ingredients are completely mixed the filling is fed into trays on a conveyor there's enough filling in each tray to make 200 steamed pork buns [Music] at the end of the line each tray is weighed and adjusted by hand to ensure that each and every single tray has the exact amount of pork filling from here it's ready for shipment to the stores so before we continue on I want to give a quick shout out to the sponsor for this video squarespace if you all don't already know squarespace is the number one way to build your online presence in fact I use squarespace for my website tokyo zebra here are just some of the reasons why I love using squarespace so much whether you're starting your passion project or building a business squarespace has all the tools to get it done while also looking ultra sleek and professional at the same time they support numerous portfolios and gallery designs which you can customize and even password protect so the right people see your work use its fully integrated blogging tools and commenting features such as threaded comments replies and likes to help engage your community and my favorite built-in analytics to see how your visits unique visitors and page views trend over time so there you have it go to squarespace.com today for your free trial and when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com/paolofromtokyo and get 10% off your first domain or website alright let's continue on with this video check out this machine right here I think it's making Shumai [Music] as mentioned earlier the central kitchen factory doesn't just make pork buns but other delectable chinese food as well so let me show you one of my personal favorites their Shumai which by no surprise is also one of their more popular items selling about a hundred thousand pieces each and every day [Music] oh and the yellow wrap ones are the shrimp shumai and their white ones are their standard pork shumai let's just take a moment of silence to watch these lovely beauties come to life [Music] after the Shumai are laid into trays workers at the end of the line visually inspect every shumai if any of the shumai are missized or visually unappealing it's hand replaced by a perfectly formed one [Music] in this area all the shumai get trayed up and then sent to the refrigerator [Music] once each and every shumai in a tray clears inspection the tray is automatically wrapped and barcoded by the machine to specify its final destination then the trays are stacked and ushered further down the line to the loading dock [Music] on the same factory floor Gyoza are made on a different line the factory must produce about 88,000 gyoza a day to meet their store's sales demand [Music] oh she's installing a new roll of gyoza wrapping interestingly the cutout remains are automatically recycled by the machine and re-rolled to make new wrappers in order to minimize waste [Music] similar to the shumai and other foods produced every single piece of gyoza must pass a visual inspection in order to make it out of the factory huh I wonder what's behind that door over there [Music] Go Go Ichi's pork buns and shumai are often eaten with their signature mustard sauce and provided to customers in small packets at each order amazingly the factory produced their own mustard in-house unlike most mustard it's made extremely fresh with no additives or preservatives meaning it's to be eaten right away along with the pork buns and shumai [Music] so i've made it into the office area let me see what's going on over here Okay guy in an apron standing alone in an empty room What's up ? how often do you test ? So what do you look for ? Does the food every fail ? Do you get tired of eating the same thing every day? he's one of five team members in the factory's food assurance team who test their food before shipment each and every day to ensure consistent quality is delivered to their customers [Music] so this is where all the deliveries get picked up time to get loaded so all of the various food trays that were just made pork filling, dough, shumai, gyoza and other chinese foods are conveyored to this loading area the conveyor line area itself is refrigerated and extremely cold to keep the food as fresh as possible each tray is taken off the line loaded onto carts and sorted by hand the delivery workers review their order sheets and load trays into the trucks accordingly to ensure each shop gets the correct order even the delivery trucks are refrigerated to keep the food trays fresh while on its way to the stores [Music] and there we are all packed up and good to go Now let's go into the restaurant and see what they're making [Music] Oh the delivery truck has arrived as I mentioned at the beginning each store receives four deliveries every day the amount for the first shipment of the day is pre-determined the other three deliveries are placed in the central kitchen throughout the day one hour before the truck leaves this means that the central kitchen must constantly and quickly adapt their daily production quantities to meet the demand for all of its 58 stores [Music] now that the newly ordered dough has arrived at the store the shop workers must cut the mature dough into smaller pieces so it can be used to wrap the pork filling even at this point time is critical as the dough still continues to rise so to offset the maturing Its either placed in the refrigerator or at room temperature [Music] it looks like this dough has to sit out just a bit longer before the wrapping process can commence it really takes a trained and skilled wrapper to know when the dough has fully matured so this is where the steam ones are wrapped inside of the store right in front of the customers cool now the wrapping process starts first the worker places down wooden sheets called Zabuton where each steam bun will rest Zabuton are made mostly from thinly sliced pine trees which when steamed gives off a nice but subtle scent a majority of the shop workers are trained to wrap pork buns making up to a thousand buns per day They're so fast that on a busy day they can wrap one complete pork bun in 10 seconds [Music] Hello Can I ask you what you are doing ? What do you need to be careful upon preparing the dough ? so what's the most important thing when wrapping the pork bun ? and how long did it take you to master this ? their pork buns are steamed for about 20 minutes to ensure that the steam buns are fully cooked the workers also check the center temperature [Music] apparently the staff refer to pork buns as Kao face in english and well-shaped buns are referred to as beautiful ladies if that's the case then i've seen a lot of beautiful ladies today now all that's left is to serve it to their customers so that's how steam buns are made in Japan let me know what you thought in the comments If you guys like this video help me out and hit that like button If you guys want to see more videos like this made in Japan videos or anything related to Japan hit that subscribe button and the bell button and I'll catch you guys in the next one

Channel: Paolo fromTOKYO

Views: 1,697,039

Keywords: Paolo, Japan, Japan guide, japanese food, steamed buns, steamed pork buns, 551, 551 horai, pork buns, japanese food tour, japanese factory, japan factory, food factory, factory food, factory tour, made in japan, japan food, nikuman, butaman, chinese pork buns, japanese steam buns, japanese food factory, japanese factory tour, working in japan, working in factory in japan, japan life, food, japanese pork buns, factory made food, food tour japan, osaka food, life in japan

Id: U9QlvPz6iYQ

Length: 16min 15sec (975 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 17 2021