I Went to Chinatown to Perfect My Homemade Steamed Buns

[Music] so before we talk dim sum I just wanted to thank Brookside for sponsoring today's video which is a chocolate I personally been eating for years now I'm the type of guy that just needs some chocolate after every meal I need that little bit of sweet and Brookside really hits the spot for me and what they do is they take dark chocolate and they combined it with unique flavors like pomegranate and acai and blueberry flavor combinations that are surprisingly delicious together that you wouldn't think of and my favorite way to eat these are definitely to pop them in the freezer I think it really enhances the texture personally so for today's video I thought we would explore other unique flavor combinations and there's no better place to do that than Chinatown so I'm gonna head out to Chinatown to try some dim sum and get inspired and then come back to the studio and try to create some unique flavors in dim sum [Music] every single borough in New York has its own unique Chinatown today I'm in Sunset Park which is the Chinatown in Brooklyn because it's closest to my studio and it happens to be awesome as well I'm gonna be meeting up with my intern Alex who actually lives in Sunset Park so she's a much better grasp on where to go the best restaurants to hit so we're gonna explore Brooklyn Chinatown today and hopefully get some tasty goodies how long have you lived there so you come to Chinatown a lot yeah okay so you're pretty familiar with the spots so if we're looking for you know delicious surprising treats that are filled with yummy things where do we go you can literally go in between streets and little holes in the wall guarantee you if you like open a door I already saw one myself steamed buns right when I got off the subway and I was like I'll wait for a second so basically I guess that's the plan you have a few places in mind and then we'll just explore okay [Music] so we've come to a little part and we're gonna sample our steamed buns let's see what's in here magical surprise wow this place was really awesome they were nice enough to let us come in and film in there watch the technique and they were filling it up with it's kind of like a ground a ground pork yeah yeah not much else other than like a sauce so pretty simple grab one we also got this big one not to mention they gave us everything for free which was really nice let's see what's in here okay this is the same thing just gigantic oh you know I I see where the sweetness is coming from we've got a lot of just like caramelized onions in there which is really nice to see that yeah it's like a meatball in there it's really good the buns are incredible yeah they're like super fluffy a little bit sweet cuz I was looking it up in it it's pretty much like a milk bread do you know a little bit of sugar a little bit of milk depth that's really nice okay so that was a good base feeling pretty inspired but we want to try some desserts as well so what was did a bakery I got [Music] this green ones calling the me but this this one looks like a rice one and then would you say this oh okay we'll get one of these and one of these okay you said you know this lady this could be great I'm thinking for a filling potential at Cosi all different types of textures and flavors this one has peanuts in here this is something you get a lot oh not so good Oh that's incredible because it's coconut and then you get the chewiness in the rice and then the crunchy and salty sweet that is a perfect dessert and this one has taro in it yes so this is just like a bond to a taro I like that one because all of these are chewy so now we go to a baked bun and it's such a different texture but I really Carol is like this we as part of it but it's not the flavors incredible yeah and I don't know I'm feeling inspired I think we got a lot of yummy samples really unique flavors a lot of unique flavors surprising so we're gonna head back to the studio now first we're gonna go shopping and then we're gonna head back to the studio and make our own surprisingly delicious snacks since Alex and I sampled so much dim sum there was no way I was making just one version at home I at least needed one savory and one sweet but what I'm gonna do is make one dough recipe and use it for both the sweet and the savory and one will be steamed and one will be baked so for the dough recipe it's pretty simple all you got to do is start off with blooming some yeast so I just take one tablespoon of yeast just one packet of instant yeast and pour in about 30 grams or a quarter cup of warm water to that I added just a little bit of honey about one teaspoon of honey to activate the yeast and let that sit for about 15 minutes until it's fully activated in the meantime you can start up with your other dough ingredients I'm using a mixer here but you can do this by hand and I add 400 grams of flour and then 40 grams of sugar since this is a sweet dough and then just a little bit of salt around 10 grams of salt and then the main wet ingredient to this is milk which is traditional and steamed buns and it just gives it a nice flavor and a nice texture so I'm gonna add 200 grams of milk and then about one tablespoon of cooking oil and just give that a mix for about two minutes until it really together and it starts to get smooth then you can remove that on a floured surface and start kneading that together until it is just a beautiful smooth dough once your dough is fully kneaded you have to let its rise and proof and double in size you can throw it in the fridge if you're doing it at night and just let it sit in the fridge for a longer proof or just let it sit at room temperature for around one to two hours until it really has expanded and this is a great time to work on your fillings so we're gonna do one sweet and one savory for the savory I'm doing something similar to what I tasted in the steam bun shop but I'm switching up the main ingredient and adding a few more additional elements so first I'm gonna dice up some onions and I'm also going to dice up some shiitake mushrooms and then to a hot pan get some oil in there and throw in a few diced red chilies some minced garlic and some ginger and just infuse that flavor right into the oil right here such a foundation to Chinese cooking if you want to make something that tastes Chinese start with frying off some garlic some ginger then some chili you're well on your way add some scallions to smelling like Chinese cooking in here next you're gonna add your diced onion and your shiitake mushrooms and just let that caramelize on a medium heat for around five to seven minutes until it is softened and when those veggies are looking beautiful you can deglaze the pan I'm using some Chinese cooking wine that I got in Chinatown use some white wine and use like vinegar so instead of using ground pork which you see in a lot of dim sum and a lot of steamed bun recipes I'm gonna use some ground lamb because I really like the flavor of lamb and it's still some really nice fat content which is integral for a steamed bun but you can use any type of ground meat that you prefer and all you have to do is take that veggie mixture and add it to the ground lamb and then we're just gonna hit it with a few more ingredients we've got some black vinegar we've got a little bit of soy sauce a little bit of sesame oil and then I chopped up some fresh basil and I threw that into the mixture and gave it a mix and then put that in the fridge to cool alright moving on to the sweet filling so I was really inspired by a lot of the different desserts and when we were walking through Chinatown we actually found this this stand that was selling fresh tofu and I knew instantly that that tofu was going in the desert because it's hard to find really good tofu and I like incorporating tofu into different desserts but the question is what are we gonna add to that tofu and I found my answer when I saw some beautiful purple yams in Chinatown so all I'm gonna do to these purple yams is just throw them in a 400-degree oven for one hour until they are perfectly roasted you just have that tender meat on the inside and you can peel that away so you just have the meat and not the skin and then we're gonna Pat down that tofu so it's nice and dry throw it in a food processor and then add that purple yam knead and just a little bit of coconut sugar you can use some regular sugar just to sweeten it up but I like it when it's not too sweet it still has a little bit of savoriness [Applause] and then you can package that up and throw that in the fridge and then we're ready to roll out our steamed buns so of course the the cooks in the shop have been rolling steamed buns for years and make it look very easy and it's not that easy but there are some simple techniques so you can do this at home so the first step is portioning out your dough so when your dough is proofed you're gonna take it out and just roll it into a log and then chop it up into pieces I like laying out those pieces individually so all of your steamed buns come out equally and I'm just laying them out at about 50 to 55 grams each so you get a nice medium-sized steamed bun and then you're gonna roll the dough into little balls and I like just pushing it through so you get some tension on the dough and just keep kind of pushing it up from the inside until you get a ball and then you can give it a roll on the table to smooth out the seam on the bottom so for the sweet buns I'm gonna bake them in the oven so I just put them on little parchment pieces and let them proof for another 45 minutes until they've doubled in size and then I mixed up some egg and some milk to paint on the buns to give them a nice crust and then sprinkled on some sesame seeds threw them in an oven at 380 degrees for about 14 to 15 minutes until they were nice and golden brown while those are cooling I'm gonna roll out the steamed buns and there's a really simple technique where you take the dough just give it a few Pat's and then just use your roller to go around the side while turning the dough just keep doing that and it's gonna be a little thinner on the outside and thicker on the inside using this technique and that's actually good because when we go to crimp the steamed buns together we're pulling it up so it starts to even out the dough so you want it a little thicker on the inside once you have your round I like just putting a little water on the outside so it sticks together when you crimp it and then just scoop a ball of meat right on the inside and start crimping and you know it doesn't have to be perfect but you're just kind of crimping it together while twirling it so you get that nice swirled crimp edge to it your steam bun and just keep practicing I swear you'll continue to get better I got better from just one round of rolling these steam buns [Music] oh goodness look at the fluffiness those came out great I'm just gonna create a really quick dipping sauce so I can enjoy these to the fullest ooh oil does so they came off real nicely [Music] oh my god the lamb is nice and fatty so you get a little bit of juice its flavored perfectly love the shiitake mushrooms in there that competes with any steam bond so this one I'm very interested in Alex and I tried a ton of just crazy flavors of desserts yesterday in Chinatown the desserts you can really go with the surprising flavor combinations here we go so I tasted the filling and it was delicious but something about putting it in this bun elevates it it's really subtle it's not too strong but that is that you could sell that in the stores right now I need another buy now this is mr. wrong he he helped me build a lot of this place and he's been bugging me to make him some Chinese food [Music] the mushroom yeah yeah you got a dip yeah let's do that oh good yeah yeah you want to try right oh you can't you're kosher you're gonna see what good yeah better than the stores that's where I went yeah I went yesterday and I sampled some yeah there you go we've got a big sweet bun and a savory steamed bun and I was really impressed by how these came out just the uniqueness of the flavor combinations and the fluffiness I really do wish I made like a hundred of these things and just froze them now I'm gonna have to yeah I'm gonna have to do this again this weekend just to have extras because they were so fantastic thanks again to Brookside for sponsoring this video and make sure you follow me at life by Mike G for more crazy food experiments on Instagram and I will see you in the next video on the next video I'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Pro Home Cooks

Views: 158,749

Keywords: dim sum, steamed buns, homemade steamed buns, chinatown dim sum, Brookside, Surprisingly Delicious, Brookside Chocolate, Dark Chocolate, Acai, Pomegranate, Blueberry, Chocolate, Fruit Chocolate, Dark Chocolate and Fruit, First time, Surprisingly Good, Taste Test, Chocolate Taste Test, Weird Flavors, easy Chinese food, attempting steamed buns, brooklyn chinatown, what to do in chinatown, best in chinatown, lamb buns

Id: 9c7E614XRY4

Length: 16min 32sec (992 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 14 2019