The white flour Mantou sold outside often contains a lot of whitening agents and Leavening agents. If you want to eat healthy Mantou without additives, you’d better make it at home! As long as you master a few tips, you can easily make big white and fat Mantou. Make more when you are free on weekends, steam them, and freeze them in the refrigerator. Every morning, take out a hot one, add milk or soybean milk, and then a fried egg. It only takes a few minutes to complete a nutritious and delicious breakfast!
What are Steamed Buns
One of the traditional Chinese noodle dishes, it is a food product steamed with fermented flour.
With wheat flour as the main ingredient, steamed buns are one of the daily staple foods of Chinese people.
How to steam Mantou
Pour the yeast into the warm water, stir well and leave for 5 minutes.
Place the flour in a large bowl and slowly pour in the yeast water in small batches, stirring with chopsticks as you pour in the water, until you see the flour begin to clump together.
At this point, use your hands to knead the flour repeatedly.
When the flour forms a ball, cover the large bowl tightly with a damp cloth or plastic wrap, place it in a warm place, and let it rest for about 1 hour (in the winter, it will take about 2 hours, or 1 hour if you place it next to a heater).
The dough is ready when it has doubled in size and is full of bubbles and honeycomb tissue.
It is best to continue to knead and press the dough with your hands at this point to squeeze out the air inside, then cover with plastic wrap or a damp cloth and wait for the dough to expand again before using it for steamed buns, buns, hairy bread, bean buns, and so on.
Place the buns in a steamer, bring the water to a boil over high heat, and reduce the heat to medium when you see steam coming out of the pot for 8 minutes (if the pot is large or there are many buns, extend the time appropriately).
Turn off the heat and let the buns cool in the steamer for about 5 minutes, then open the lid and take out the buns.
You need to pay attention to the following points when steaming the steamed buns:
Knead the dough repeatedly until the flour is kneaded into a dough and the inside is filled with air bubbles and honeycomb tissue.
While fermenting, the dough needs to be placed in a warm place and covered with a damp cloth or plastic wrap to maintain humidity.
When steaming steamed buns, you need to steam them over high heat and pay attention to time control to avoid overcooking or undercooking the steamed buns.
You need to wait for some time after removing the flame before opening the lid of the pot to avoid the buns suddenly getting cold and shrinking back.
How to store and reheat Mantou
1. Refrigerate and store
After the steamed buns are cooled, put them in a plastic bag or plastic box and keep them in the refrigerator.
The next day, heat them in a steamer for about 10 minutes before serving.
2ใFreezing
Put the leftover steamed buns in a plastic bag and store them in the refrigerator.
This way the buns will not spoil if you leave them for a month.
After freezing the steamed buns cold water in the pot, high heat boil to medium heat and steam again for 13-15 minutes, turn off the fire and simmer for 5 minutes before uncovering, so it is more delicious.
Notes
When heating the buns, you can first use a wet cloth to wrap the buns, and then put them into the microwave oven or steamer to heat up, so that the buns are heated evenly, the taste is better.
If the buns are cold and then directly placed in the microwave oven to heat, it may cause the buns to become very hard and lose their texture.
Mantou with what?
1ใDishes
Steamed buns can be eaten with a variety of dishes, such as stir-fried, stewed and steamed dishes.
Some common pairings include steamed buns with scrambled eggs, steamed buns with tofu, steamed buns with meat and so on.
2ใSoup
Steamed buns can also be consumed with various soups, such as chicken soup, meat soup, fish soup and so on.
3ใSnacks
Steamed buns can also be eaten with snacks, such as kebabs, pancakes, omelettes and so on.
4ใCongee
Steamed buns can also be eaten with various kinds of congee, such as millet congee, rice congee, cornmeal congee and so on.
How to make white flour Mantou
Equipment
- 1 food steamer
Ingredients
Ingredients
- 260 g water
- 5 g yeast
- 500 g plain flour
- 20 g sugar
Instructions
- Prepare ingredients and tools: 260 grams of water, 5 grams of yeast, 500 grams of plain flour, 20 grams of sugar (you can add no sugar if you like plain white steamed buns) Wok, steamer
- Pour 5 grams of yeast into the bowl, stir well with 260 grams of warm water, and let it stand for about 5 minutes before use;
- Pour 500 grams of flour into the bowl, pour in the yeast water from Step 1, stir while pouring, and stir until flocculent (if you like sweet steamed buns, you can add 20 grams of sugar in this step);
- Knead repeatedly to form a smooth dough, then cover with plastic wrap and ferment at room temperature for about 30 minutes (the fermentation time is related to the temperature, if the indoor temperature is low, the fermentation time should be extended accordingly);
- Fermented to 2-3 times the original size, there is a faint unique aroma after fermentation, and the obvious honeycomb shape after tearing indicates that the fermentation is complete;
- Take out the dough, squeeze out the air, and sprinkle flour around;
- Then knead the dough thoroughly, and knead the flour into the dough until there are no large holes in it;
- Knead into a smooth and elastic dough; (the key point of soft steamed buns is to knead the dough in place)
- Cut into evenly sized slices;
- Press the edges of the dough in turn, and repeat this technique several times;
- Then knead the dough until the surface is smooth and round so that the steamed buns look good;
- Put the finished steamed bun embryos into the steamer, cover, and wake up for about 10-15 minutes;
- Proof until the steamed buns are slightly larger, put them into the pot, add water to the bottom scale line, steam on high heat, then steam on medium-low heat for about 8-10 minutes, turn off the heat and simmer for about 2-3 minutes and you are done!
- With white steamed buns, many delicious steamed buns can be transformed!
This is awesome! I added avocado also and sour cream. The family loved it too. Thank you for sharing the recipe.
So glad you enjoyed it, Sukie!
Made with regular gnocchi land was perfect! Came together quick and easy! Entire family enjoyed, even a picky eater who would never eat kale. Praises from all! Didnโt have fresh thyme and subbed with dry and was delicious. Used a Sauvignon blanc for the wine and used chicken stock instead of broth.
Hi Nina! Thanks for the tip. ๐