Staple family

Dumplings & Steamed Buns

Flour, water, rest, and a bamboo steamer.

A steamed bun is a small lesson in how flour behaves. Mix too briefly and the dough tears when you shape it; knead too long and it fights back. Resting does most of the work, quietly, while you get on with the filling. The recipes here share one dough family, so learning the mantou batch gives you flower rolls, filled buns and a decent wrapper for whatever is left in the fridge.

In this chapter

6 recipes

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Eight tall snow-white domed buns stacked in a bamboo steamer, their matte skins uncracked and faintly gleaming with steam

Steamed Mantou Buns

Plain wheat dough, proofed twice and steamed over gentle heat, yields tall snowy buns with a tight, springy crumb that pulls apart into soft, faintly sweet layers.

44 minSteamMedium

Six pale rosette rolls in a bamboo steamer, layered petals fanned open with bright green scallion flecks between each fold

Scallion Flower Rolls

Yeast dough is brushed with scallion oil, folded into a thin ribbon and twisted into layered rosettes that steam into soft, pull-apart spirals with green flecks in every seam.

52 minSteamAmbitious

Forty pale crescent dumplings arranged in rows on a floured board, each with four neat pleats along one curved edge

Pork and Cabbage Dumplings

Hand-rolled wheat wrappers hold a salted pork and cabbage filling that releases its own juices; a rolling boil sets the skins while the centres stay firm and faintly peppery.

70 minBoilMedium

Twelve white domed buns in a bamboo steamer, each gathered into a tight spiral at the crown with no filling showing

Steamed Vegetable Buns

Fluffy yeast dough wraps a firm, dry filling of cabbage, carrot and mushroom; a short second proof and steady steam give each bun a high crown and a clean, unbroken top.

58 minSteamAmbitious

Four pale gold bowls of clear broth with eight translucent wontons each, green scallion rings and spinach leaves floating on top

Wontons in Clear Broth

Thin square wrappers folded around a small pork and shrimp ball poach in a clear, ginger-scented stock, so each spoonful carries silky skin, a firm centre and a clean, light broth.

65 minBoilMedium

Twenty-four open-topped shumai in a bamboo steamer, pleated walls standing upright with a green pea or orange carrot dot on each exposed filling

Pork and Shrimp Shumai

Open-topped dumplings with thin pleated walls hold a springy pork and shrimp filling; brief steaming keeps the tops exposed, the skins chewy and a single pea or carrot dot bright on each one.

54 minSteamAmbitious

Technique note · 8 min read

Flour, Water and Rest: Working with Wheat Dough

The three states of a simple dough, how hydration changes them, and why resting time is an ingredient rather than a pause.

Other staple families

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Cooking dumplings at home

The recipes above share a small set of ingredients and one or two pieces of equipment, so it is worth cooking them in sequence rather than at random. Make the simplest one first — it tells you how your pan, your flour or your rice behaves — then move on to the versions that build on it. If you are working from what is already in the kitchen, the full recipe index can filter every chapter at once by ingredient, equipment and time.