Step 1

Wash and soak the red beans overnight, for at least 10 hours. They will expand to about 2½ cups of beans. Drain and put the beans into a heavy pot. Add 4 cups of water. Cook for 1 hour over medium heat until the beans are very tender. Add sugar, rice syrup, kosher salt, and vanilla extract. Roughly mash with a potato masher. Turn up the heat to medium high heat and stir a few minutes until the bean mixture turns thick and juicy. Remove from the heat. Cover and set aside.

Step 2

Heat the butter in a large heavy pot over medium high heat. Stir with a wooden spoon until well melted. Add sugar and stir well. Remove from the heat.To cool it down so the yeast can work, add cold milk and mix it well. Then add the yeast and let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes until the yeast gets foamy.Add the salt and stir it well with a wooden spoon. Add flour and mix well for about a minute. Knead the dough by hand for a few minutes until smooth. Cover and let it sit on the kitchen counter for 1 hour until the dough doubles in size.Deflate the dough and knead it again for a few minutes. Cover and let it sit for 30 minutes.

Step 3

Before shaping the buns, fill your steamer with about 2½ inches of water and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat. Put the steamer basket next to you, so you can add buns to it as you work. Place a cotton cloth (or “steaming sheet”) in the steamer basket.Deflate and knead the dough until smooth. Use the remaining ¼ cup flour to dust your cutting board.Divide the dough into about 10 pieces, with each piece being about 3 ounces. Form into smooth balls and put them on the cutting board. Cover the dough balls with plastic wrap to keep them from drying out while you work. Flatten each dough ball into a disk about 3½ inches in diameter. The edges should be thinner than the middle because we’re going to gather them together to form a bun and we don’t want that part to be too thick.Put about 2 ounces of sweet red bean filling into the center of the disk. Lift the edges up around the filling and pinch them together to seal tightly and make a bun.Put it on the cutting board with the sealed side down. Turn it around and shape it with your hands into a small mountain. Put it on the steamer basket lined with steamer liner or perforated parchment paper. Make the rest of the buns, spacing them 1 inch apart on the steamer basket so they have room to expand. Let them rise for 30 minutes.

Step 4

Reheat the water in the steamer and put the steamer baskets with the buns inside. Put a large cotton cloth under the lid so that the water doesn’t drip back down onto the buns. Cover and steam over medium hight heat for 12 minutes. Turn the heat down to low and cook an additional 3 minutes.Remove from the heat and serve right away.Freeze (up to one month) or refrigerate (up to one week) any leftovers. When you want one, steam or reheat it in a microwave.

Step 5

Manycatss USA joined 9/20 & has 1 commentPosted September 8th, 2020 at 7:27 pm | Log in to reply. Hey Maangchi! I was wondering if I could use this dough for the japchae and pork while also making it rounds and not folded! kbach Pennsylvania USA joined 5/20 & has 1 commentPosted May 18th, 2020 at 11:20 am | Log in to reply. I do not usually leave comments, or join websites. But this recipe and others have been so helpful to our mental health over these past few COVID shelter in place months. I had no idea how to make so many of my families favorite Asian foods. And your recipes are so easy to understand and presented so well! So when I made these, I ran out of the bean inside so I stuffed a couple with BBQ pork OMG so good. So then the next time I made this recipe I double it, and actually only made the dough. I went crazy with the dough stuffing it with so many different things from egg, ham and cheese, to ginger beef etc. Then I decided to bake some instead of steaming them, because I did not have enough room to steam them all. And each and every one – baked or steamed was excellent. We will go to Philadelphia Chinatown when it is open again, but for now, I can keep the family very well fed with their favorites. Thank you :) Mama5 Cali joined 3/20 & has 2 commentsPosted March 16th, 2020 at 4:52 pm | Log in to reply. hi, maangchimy dough isn’t as sticky as yours. what did I do wrong?mine is kind of hard ball. cymml1028 Maryland usa joined 3/20 & has 1 commentPosted February 29th, 2020 at 9:11 pm | Log in to reply. Made this today … thank you ….See full size image Maangchi New York City joined 8/08 & has 12,051 commentsPosted March 4th, 2020 at 2:11 am | Log in to reply. Congratulations! They look so fluffy and delicious!