Step 1

A few hours before you are ready to cook your bao, you want to get your dough put together. Begin by placing the water, sugar, vegetable oil and yeast in a cup. Give the yeast about five minutes to come to life. You’ll be able to tell when the yeast is ready once the mixture starts to give off a yeasty smell. While that does its thing place the flour in a bowl.

Step 2

Once the yeast mixture is ready, pour it into the bowl and begin to mix together with the flour. Once the dough has formed together, begin to knead the dough on the table. The dough will be a little sticky and that is completely fine.

Step 3

Knead that dough! Do this for about five minutes. Place the dough in a bowl, cover it and let it rise for at least two hours.

Step 4

Now for the chicken filling. Start by chopping all you vegetables. Chop the scallions and water chestnuts.

Step 5

Chop up the mushrooms. Finally, cut up the chicken.

Step 6

In a small bowl mix the soy sauce, rice wine, and hon dashi together. Warm a pan over medium-high heat with some vegetable oil. Add the chicken to the pan and begin cooking it.

Step 7

Add some black pepper to the chicken. Cook the chicken for about five minutes. Add the mushrooms and water chestnuts to the pan and cook for about five minutes.

Step 8

Stir in the scallions and cook for about two minutes. Finally add the sauce to the pan. Stir this and cover the pan and lower the heat to about a low-medium. Allow this to cook for about 10 minutes.

Step 9

While that is simmering, fill a pot up with water and insert the steamer for it. Divide up your dough into little balls. By the time you are done, your chicken filling should be cooked.

Step 10

Begin by rolling out the dough. Add about 1 tbsp of the chicken filling.

Step 11

Pinch together the ends of the roll to close the bao up. Place each bao on a small piece of wax paper. This is a very important step because without the wax paper those bao are going to stick to the steamer insert.

Step 12

For the dessert bao simply scoop a tbsp of nutella and place some chopped banana on top. Wrap this one the same way, just make sure that top is extra tight (don’t want nutella everywhere).

Step 13

Place the bao in your steamer insert and cover with a lid. Make sure to give the bao a little room because as they cook they are going to expand a little bit. Cook these for about 15-20 minutes. And now they are ready to server! Enjoy~