Part 5: Evening

Evening brings the soft breads of the stove and the shaped breads of the oven: buns cooked in steam, buns with something tucked inside, rings, spirals and rolls that look like small animals. The doughs are ones the hands already know; now they learn to fill, fold and close them.

41. Steam Can Bake a Bun as Well as Fire Can

Anton: Here is the whole lesson for tonight. Steam can bake a bun as well as fire can, and the bun comes out white, soft and smooth as a river stone.

Vera: No oven at all? Rosa, kneeling on the bench under the dark window, has already pulled the flour sack towards her, so I suppose we are starting.

Dusk, at the Long Table

Anton: In the lands far to the east, many homes had a stove but no oven. So they set baskets of woven bamboo over a pot of water and let the steam do the baking.

Vera: And the dough is the yeast dough we already know?

Anton: Nearly. Less water, a little sugar, a longer knead. Steam shows everything, so every lump you leave inside will show on the skin of the bun. Knead until the dough feels like the inside of your wrist, then let it rise until it is as puffed as a cloud before rain.

A Hospital Kitchen, After Midnight

Vera: I ate these long before I ever steamed a bun myself. I was twenty-four and working nights in a hospital, and in the basement kitchen, under pipes that hissed like a kettle, worked a cook called Xenia, who came from the river plains far to the east.

Vera: At two in the morning she lifted the lid of a tall steamer, and the cloud that rose smelled of warm milk and wheat and nothing else, and she gave each nurse one bun, plain as a pebble, still too hot to hold. We ate them standing. I have never been so grateful for so little.

At the Work Table

For eight buns: 300 g plain flour (2 1/2 cups), 3 g instant yeast (1 teaspoon), 20 g sugar (1 1/2 tablespoons), 165 ml warm water (2/3 cup) and 1 teaspoon of mild oil. You also need a steamer basket, a large pot with a lid, a clean cloth and eight squares of baking paper.

Vera: A child mixes the flour, yeast and sugar, pours in the water and oil, and stirs until no dry flour is left.

Anton: A child kneads for ten minutes, until the dough is smooth and springy. Cover it and let it rise for about an hour, until doubled.

Vera: Press out the air, roll the dough into a long sausage and cut eight pieces. A child shapes each into a ball, seams underneath, and sets it on a paper square in the basket.

Anton: Cover the buns and let them rise for twenty minutes. Meanwhile a grown-up brings 5 cm (2 inches) of water to a simmer in the pot. The water must not touch the basket.

Vera: A grown-up sets the basket over the pot, wraps the lid in the cloth so drops cannot fall on the buns, and steams them for fifteen minutes over medium heat.

Anton: Turn off the heat and wait five minutes before opening, or the buns may wrinkle. A grown-up lifts the lid away from the face, because steam burns as badly as boiling water. Pan handles turned in.

By the Stove, Lid On

Question: Rosa asks why the buns never turn brown.

Answer: Browning needs a dry surface much hotter than boiling water. Steam keeps the skin of the bun wet and at about 100°C (212°F), so the bun cooks right through but stays pale and soft.

Three quick questions. One: How long do the buns steam? Two: Why is the lid wrapped in a cloth? Three: Who lifts the lid?

Answers. One: Fifteen minutes, then five minutes with the heat off. Two: So that drops of water do not fall on the buns. Three: A grown-up, tilting it away from the face.

Vera: Look at them. Plump as new snow on a fence post.

Anton: Tear one open while it steams. Plain bread like this tastes of the wheat itself, the way well water tastes of the stone it rose through.

Vera: Then we drink something just as plain. Warm soy milk with a spoon of sugar, which is what Xenia poured for us at two in the morning. Rosa, hold the cup with both hands, and blow on it first. The night is long; there is no hurry at all.

Key Words

Steamer basket: a round basket of woven bamboo or metal, open underneath, that sits over a pot of simmering water so steam can cook the food inside.

Simmer: to keep water just below a full boil, with small bubbles rising gently.

42. Twelve Pleats Is a Beginning

Anton: Look closely at the top of a good filled bun. Sixteen or eighteen small pleats, all leaning the same way, climb to the centre and meet in a little twisted knot, like the whorl at the tip of a snail's shell.

Vera: And underneath them, hidden, the filling. It is a parcel with the string made of dough, and a good one never comes undone.

The Lamp over the Table

Vera: Sasha, perched on the step stool by the sink, wants to know whether the dough is the same as for the plain buns.

Anton: The same. What is new is the closing. A filled bun must be sealed tightly, or the juices run out into the steam and the bun sits in a puddle.

Vera: Where do filled buns come from, really? Every land seems to have its own.

Anton: Every land does. In the east they are steamed and pleated, in the cold north they are baked and pinched along one side, and wherever there is flour and something good left from the day, someone has thought of wrapping one inside the other.

At the Work Table

For ten buns, the dough: 300 g plain flour (2 1/2 cups), 3 g instant yeast (1 teaspoon), 20 g sugar (1 1/2 tablespoons), 165 ml warm water (2/3 cup) and 1 teaspoon of mild oil.

The filling: 250 g minced pork or chicken, 2 spring onions, 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 tablespoon mild oil, 2 tablespoons water and a pinch of pepper. Without meat, use 250 g thick sweet red-bean paste instead.

Anton: Mix and knead the dough as before, ten minutes, then let it rise for about an hour, until doubled.

Vera: A grown-up chops the onions and grates the ginger. A child stirs everything for the filling in one direction until it turns sticky, then washes hands well, because the meat is raw.

Anton: Cut the dough into ten pieces. A child rolls each into a circle 10 cm (4 inches) across, thinner at the edge than in the middle.

Vera: Put a heaped tablespoon of filling in the centre. Pinch a small fold of the edge, press it onto the next, and keep turning and pinching until the top closes. Twist the knot.

Anton: Set each bun on a square of baking paper in the steamer, cover, and let them rise for twenty minutes, until they look a little puffy.

Vera: A grown-up steams them over simmering water for fifteen minutes, waits three minutes with the heat off, then lifts the lid away from the face. Steam burns. Handles turned in.

Anton: Break one open. The filling must be hot all through, with no pink left. If in doubt, steam five minutes more.

The Harbour Market, Forty Years Ago

Anton: I learned to pleat at a night market by a harbour in the warm islands far to the east. My teacher was Wei, whose stall stood under a string of paper lanterns between the fish sellers and the ferry ramp, and who could close a bun without looking down.

Anton: I was a young baker who thought he knew dough. Wei watched my first bun, lumpy and sealed with six fat folds, and said nothing for a long while. Then he said, twelve pleats is a beginning. Eighteen is a bun.

Vera: Did you get to eighteen?

Anton: After a month. He laughed and gave me the stool beside him. Wei's hands moved like a heron's legs in shallow water, slow, then all at once.

Vera: And what did he put inside?

Anton: Pork and ginger on ordinary nights. On the evening before a holiday, sweet red beans, and the line for his stall reached the water.

Past Seven o'Clock

Question: Sasha asks why the circle must be thinner at the edge than in the middle.

Answer: The pleats pile several layers of dough at the top of the bun. If the edge were as thick as the middle, the top would still be doughy when the bottom was done.

Three quick questions. One: Which way do you stir the filling? Two: How long do the buns steam? Three: How do you know the meat is cooked?

Answers. One: Always in the same direction. Two: Fifteen minutes, then three minutes resting. Three: It is hot all through, with no pink left.

Vera: Sasha has made nine pleats on her first bun. It looks like a small, cross cabbage.

Anton: Good. Wei would have said the same to her as to me. Nine today. Tomorrow, twelve. The hands learn the way water learns a riverbed, a little more each time it runs over.

Vera: Then we eat the cross cabbage first, while it is warm, and give the hands their rest.