Piglet Bapao

Piglet Bapao

We received so many comments on King’s Day (the holiday when our king celebrates his birthday) about our bapao. On this day everybody can sell anything they want. It’s like the whole country turns into one big flea market.

My daughter Loulou immediately named our bapao ‘Varkentje Rund’ after a famous Dutch cartoon made by Michiel Hoving. ‘Varkentje Rund’ is in English ‘Piglet Beef’ and that is exactly what it contains: minced meat made out of pork and beef.

I fill this bapao with a slightly sweeter filling than my original bapao. I add more of my sweet soy sauce and some extra hot soy sauce too.

The dough for the bapao is made with baking powder and yeast to make them extra light and lovely.

Check out this link to see how to make this dough. This amount of dough is enough for 23 piglet bapao.

Piglet Bapao Filling

The filling is actually very simple. It is good to keep it pure. I think: the more complex the filling the less tasty a bapao is to my opinion because a bapao needs to be straightforward ‘comfort food’ for me.

Ingredients

• 500 grams half-to-half minced
• 2 large onions (250 grams)
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 4 tablespoons sweet soy sauce (sweet)
• 1 tablespoon hot sweet soy sauce
• 2 spring onions finely chopped
• black sesame seeds

I do not use oil, but brown the minced meat directly in the pan. Pork contains quite a bit of fat and it oozes out easily. When the fat starts to run out, I add the onions and garlic already chopped finely. I make sure the minced meat is completely cooked through.

I cut my dough into 24 equal pieces. I roll my dough into a sausage and I divide it into equal parts until I get 24 pieces. I keep one piece of dough to make the noses, ears and tails.

This dough does not have to rise for an hour, because that is what it does when I’m filling the bapao anyway.

Ear, tail, and nose

When I’ve filled up my bamboo basket with six buns, I make the small parts. The ears and tails only need to be a very small piece of dough (one gram). It will become bigger while steaming.

I roll a small ball out of the dough the size of your pinky nail and dip one side in the water. Now I stick it to the bapao.

For the nose, I use a slightly bigger oval shape. I poke two holes in it with a skewer to for the nostrils.

The eyes are mini size. I place them close together, but you can also place them very far apart (kawaii). I wet the spot above the nose and pick up two black sesame seeds with one finger and place them on the bapao.

Steaming for 15 minutes

I steam my bapao in bamboo baskets in a wok for 15 minutes.

And then they are done. We eat our piglet bapao with a dipping sauce of sweet soy sauce or spicy chili sauce.

They look super cute. I want to experiment with colored dough now, to give them tiny pink bows or pink tails. On my pinterestboard I’ve made a collection of cute (kawaii) bapao.

Want to see more bapao on this blog? Check these links:

Bapao filled with tempé
Dough for bapao with yeast
Dough for bapao with yeast and baking powder
Bapao filled with meat mince
Bapao filled with vegetarian ‘meat’