What your life needs right now: Taiwanese scallion buns

I have always loved Taiwanese bakeries. Even back at the beginning of my life in Taipei, I often indulged my passion for cakes and pastries by making the rounds of my favorite baked goods shops. These buns were one of my most memorable crushes. And now you get to taste why.

If you like things like scallion pancakes (cōngyóubĭng 蔥油餅), where the fragrant green confetti of chopped green onions collides against a dab of oil, a sprinkle of salt, and enough starchy goodness to spread out the flavors in a perfect pattern, then you are going to adore these little breads.

And the thing is, these are super, super easy to pull together. The fact that they are drop-dead gorgeous just makes them irresistible.

Even if this is your first attempt at making raised bread, you will be successful. The actual hands-on time is minimal, as for the lion’s share of the prep you’ll simply be waiting around for the yeast to wake up, the dough to rise, and the buns to bake.

Really foamy yeast is important

If you want, you can make these in a stand mixer with a dough hook or a food processor. It doesn’t really matter. But I like to just whip these up in a bowl and then quickly knead everything on a counter, since I find it’s even faster and simpler that way.

I’m not sure of their history, but I’m guessing that these started out as one of Hong Kong’s many variations on the Parker House roll theme that has worked its way into so many Chinatown bakeries and dim sum teahouses. Perhaps Japan had a hand in this somewhere along the way, as its influence on Taiwan’s Western-style baked goods has always been pretty strong and, admittedly, delicious.

But no matter what their provenance, these buns really took off as culinary stars once they took root in Taiwan. Fortunes have been made with bakeries specializing in these soft breads—both savory and sweet—and many a Chinese market on this side of the Pacific will have a beloved satellite bakery attached to it, or at least very close by.

Fully risen dough

Taiwanese baked breads tend to be much softer and lighter than what we make in the West. There are eggs and shortening in the dough to make the bread even fluffier, but the key to the perfect texture is (as with all Chinese pastas and breads) the flour. Try to find good Korean wheat flour, since it has the right amount of gluten and tends to be of excellent quality. The ones with the polar bear somewhere on the bag are my favorite brand. If that’s not an option, just use my go-to recipe for Chinese flour: 2 parts all-purpose plus 1 part pastry flour.

Although the dough recipe is my own, the source for the shaping of these buns is an excellent blog called The Woks of Life. The ones they showed there were so beautiful that they really caught my eye. This blog deserves a lot of credit and is worth bookmarking, so here’s a shout out and a whole lot of thanks to this adorable family of food writers and bloggers!

These freeze and reheat incredibly well, so make a big batch and stash them away for breakfasts and snacks. If you’re a vegetarian, leave out the pork fluff and you’ll still have amazing buns on your hands.

Mayo as glue = yum

Green onion and pork fluff buns

Xiāngcōng ròusōng miànbāo 香蔥肉鬆麵包

Taiwan

Makes 16 (6-inch | 15 cm) batons

Dough:

1½ cups | 300 ml warm water

½ cup | 50 g powdered milk (nonfat or regular)

1 tablespoon bread yeast

¼ cup | 60 g sugar

1 large egg, lightly beaten

4 cups | 600 g Chinese flour, plus about 1 cup | 150 g more for kneading and shaping 

1½ teaspoons sea salt

¼ cup fresh peanut or vegetable oil

Filling:

2 cups lightly packed | 150 g finely chopped green onions

About 1¼ cups | 100 g homemade pork fluff (see Tips), optional

1 cup | 240 ml mayonnaise

Toppings:

Slit the cigar down the middle

1 large egg, lightly beaten, mixed with 1 teaspoon water

2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds

1 tablespoon sugar dissolved in 1 tablespoon boiling water

1. Mix the warm water, powdered milk, yeast, and sugar together in a large work bowl. Give the yeast time to wake up and become very foamy, which should take around 20 to 30 minutes. If you don’t get a good head of foam, buy fresh yeast and start over.

2. Stir the egg, flour, salt, and oil into the yeast mixture to form a soft dough. Flour a smooth work surface and dump the dough out on top. Quickly knead the dough, adding more flour as necessary to keep it from sticking, until it is smooth and bouncy. Roll the dough into a ball lightly flour it. Cover the dough with a clean tea towel, invert the bowl over the top to help keep the dough moist, and wait until the dough has risen to at least twice its original size, which will take about an hour.

Ready for the oven

3. Cut the dough into 16 even pieces. Toss them with flour and cover with a dry tea towel to keep them from drying out. Cover 2 baking sheets with either Silpat or parchment paper. Heat a convection oven to 350°F | 175°C (regular oven 375°F | 190°C) and set 1 rack near the center. Working on one piece at a time, roll a piece into a rectangle about 2 x 4 inches | 10 x 5 cm in size. Spread 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise over the dough and sprinkle it with about 2 tablespoons green onion and an optional 1 tablespoon of pork fluff. 

4. Roll the rectangle up from a long side into a cigar, gently flatten it, and then cut it down the middle, leaving one end uncut. Lightly twist these two pieces together with the cut sides out so that they look pretty. Pinch the cut end closed. Place the bun on a prepared baking sheet. You should be able to fit 8 of these buns on each sheet, but be sure to leave around 1 inch | 2 cm between them on all sides, as they will rise. Repeat this step with 7 more balls of dough in order to fill up the sheet.

5. Brush the egg wash all over each of the twists, and then sprinkle them generously with the sesame seeds. Set the pan in the center of the oven and bake for about 13 minutes, or until the buns are a lovely golden brown. Repeat Steps 4 and 5 for the remaining 8 pieces of dough while the first batch is cooking.

6. Once the buns have baked, brush them with the sugar-water glaze, which will not only add an edge of sweetness, but also make them beautifully shiny. Refrigerate or freeze in resealable bags. To reheat, set them in a 250°F |120°C oven for about 10 to 15 minutes.

Tips

Yes, please

You can of course use store-bought pork fluff. It is much lighter and flossier than the homemade stuff, and also has less flavor but a more delicate crunch, so feel free to use more. If you don’t eat pork, be on the lookout for chicken (jīsõng 雞鬆) or fish (yúsōng 魚鬆) or even vegetarian fluff (sùròusōng 素肉鬆).

Nowadays you can find all sorts of pork fluff on the market. One is called ròusū 肉酥 and seems to be more or less the same thing as pork fluff, or ròusōng 肉鬆. Often stacked nearby will be containers of ròupú 肉脯, and from what I can figure out, these are more or less the same thing, just longer and consisting of slightly coarser threads than rousong.

Again, you can use fluff of some sort here or leave it out. These buns will be fantastic any way you do them.

Taiwanese raisin cream buns

One of the mainstays of any Taiwanese bakery worth its salt is the raisin bun. It’s unlike anything we have in the West. The filling is creamy, and yet not like pastry cream, but rather with a slightly sandy texture that contrasts wonderfully with the yeasty dough.

My main complaint whenever I ate these (yes, I found time to complain between big mouthfuls) was the tiny little nuggetty raisins. They were chewy and often blah, and so seemed to be there more for visual contrast than anything else. 

I guess it's because I’ve always been a major fan of plump raisins, which aren’t that hard to achieve: all you need are relatively fresh raisins (dried up fossils are beyond redemption) and boiling water, and voila, they’re delectable.

Plumped-up raisins

The other thing I’d get cranky about was the use of margarine instead of butter. I go totally Julia Child when it comes to pastries. Go butter or go home is my mantra. But not all butters are made equal. There’s salted and unsalted, organic and not, cultured and not, and so forth. Here’s my suggestions: salted is fine for the pastries here. The advantage of unsalted is that you can calibrate the salt levels a little easier, but truth be told, the pastries will turn out great no matter what kind you use here.

I’d always head for the organic butters simply because they’re better for me (and you). But use your own judgment. 

When it comes to cultured butter, though, if you can find it, do try it. There’s a fabulous depth of flavor in cultured butter that makes other butters seem bland by comparison. And in pastries like this one, where butter turns up everywhere, a really great butter will make a world of difference in the aroma and taste. So try it and see what I mean.

Fill the dough with cream & raisins

This recipe was a lot of fun to figure out. The main thing to nail down here was the creamy filling, which is called naisu in Chinese. 

I got rid of the things like custard powder that tend to clog up too many things with their stale vanillin flavor, and then played around with the ratios until it was like the buns of my dreams. 

The topping is pretty much the same thing, but without the egg, so that it ends up like little snowflakes on the top.

Beautiful and delicious.

Raisin cream buns

Pútáogān năisū miànbāo 葡萄乾奶酥麵包

Taiwan

Makes 16 large buns

Shape the filled bun

Filling:

½ cup | 75 g raisins (see Tips)

Boiling water, as needed

½ cup | 110 g | 1 stick unsalted butter, softened

½ cup | 85 g powdered sugar

1 cup | 100 g powdered milk

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

Dough:

1½ cups | 300 ml warm water

½ cup | 50 g powdered milk

1 tablespoon bread yeast

2 tablespoons sugar

1 large egg, lightly beaten

4 cups | 600 g Chinese flour, plus about 1 cup | 150 g more for kneading

The snowy topping

1½ teaspoons sea salt

¼ cup | 55 g | ½ stick unsalted butter, softened

Topping:

2 tablespoons powdered sugar

¼ cup | 50 g Chinese flour

2 teaspoons powdered milk

¼ cup | 55 g | ½ stick unsalted butter, softened

Egg wash:

1 large egg, lightly beaten, mixed with 1 teaspoon water

1. First make the filling: Place the raisins in a heatproof bowl and cover them with boiling water. Place a saucer on top to speed up the plumping process. When they are fat and juicy (say, around 20 minutes), drain off the water and let the raisins sit on a paper towel to soak up the extra moisture. Cream the butter, powdered milk, powdered sugar, egg, and vanilla together with a food processor, stand mixer, or large work bowl until you have a light and relatively lump-free cream. Stir in the raisins. Divide the filling into 16 even pieces.

2. Now make the dough: Mix the warm water, powdered milk, yeast, and sugar together in your food processor, stand mixer bowl, or a large work bowl. (BTW, you don’t need to wash out the bowl before you do this.) Give the yeast time to wake up and become very foamy, which should take around 20 to 30 minutes. If you don’t get a good head of foam, buy fresh yeast and start over.

Final rising

3. Stir the egg, flour, salt, and oil into the yeast mixture to form a soft dough. If you’re using a stand mixer, use the hook attachment; use a metal blade for the food processor, of it you’re doing this by hand, flour a smooth work surface and dump the dough out on top. Quickly knead the dough, adding more flour as necessary to keep it from sticking, until it is smooth and bouncy. Roll the dough into a ball and lightly flour it. Cover the dough with a clean tea towel, stick the bowl over the top to help keep the dough moist, and wait until the dough has risen to at least twice its original size, which will take about an hour.

4. While the dough is rising, make the topping: Mix together all of the ingredients until smooth. That’s it.

5. Cut the dough into 16 even pieces. Toss them with flour and cover with a dry tea towel to keep them from drying out. Cover 2 baking sheets with either Silpat or parchment paper. Heat a convection oven to 350°F | 175°C (375°F | 190°C for a regular oven) and set 1 rack near the center.

6. Working on one piece at a time, and working on a lightly floured surface, roll a piece into a disc about 5 inches| 13 cm in diameter. Place one ball of filling in the center and bring up the edges around it to seal the filling well. Shape the bun into a oval shape with the smooth side on top. Repeat with 7 more of the buns and filling so that 1 baking sheet is filled. Let the buns rise for about 15 minutes.

Better than Taipei's!

7. Brush half of the egg wash all over each of the buns, and then break up the topping so that it can be easily scattered over the buns, sort of like snow. Sprinkle half of the topping along the center of each bun so that it becomes glued to the buns—don't worry if some of it ends up on the baking sheet. Set the pan in the center of the oven and bake for about 20 minutes, or until the buns are a lovely golden brown. Repeat Steps 6 and 7 for the remaining 8 pieces of dough while the first batch is cooking.

Tips

I like to use Middle Eastern raisins for these buns because their flavor is often incredibly intense. See if you can find really dark, really deeply flavored raisins, since they will make these buns almost magical.

Use good quality butter for this recipe—there is so much of it that a really tasty butter becomes the main flavoring.

Crunchy taro scallion breads

It’s hard to improve on perfection, but sometimes you just have to try. 

Case in point: Taiwan’s fried scallion breads. I’ve covered those classic snacks before, in All Under Heaven, plus a pumpkin variation here on the blog, but today I’m here with a very fine variation, one that I’m sure you’ll love, too.

Three things make this recipe unique. 

First, I took a clue from the big raised scallion breads of the North (dàbĭng 大餅) and used yeasty bread dough instead of plain flour and water. This puffs up the pastries and makes them super light. Now, this is important because of factor two:

A really good taro root

The taro in here. It’s no secret. I love taro. There’s something about its sweet warmth that equals total food comfort to me. 

And so, whenever I find an especially good taro root, I peel it, cube it, and freeze it so that I can satisfy my cravings quickly and with little fuss. 

To make the mashed taro, just steam the taro until it’s soft all the way through, which should not take more than 15 minutes. Mash the cooked taro with a fork until it’s smooth, and that’s it. And because the taro is starchy, you also need factor three:

Steamed taro cubes

Olive oil. Yes, I know, this is not traditional, but my Chinese friends are coming to love it almost as much as me, not only for its flavor, but also for its health benefits. You don’t have to use extra virgin. Regular is perfect for this.

The olive oil lends a great creaminess to the taro and also crisps up the dough like nobody’s business. 

I’ve tried other oils here, and olive oil is the way to go. You can slip some toasted sesame oil into the filling, if you want, but sesame oil is so strongly flavored that it tends to out shout the taro’s subtle aroma.

Finally, be sure and sprinkle the fried breads with some really good salt. This makes each mouthful a joy.

For a complete breakfast, you can top the breads with a fried egg. 

Sprinkle on the fillings

To do this, wait until the bread is fried to a golden crisp, and then set it to one side. Add a touch more oil to the pan and crack an egg in there. Then, immediately squoosh the bread down onto the egg so that it cracks the yolk and welds to the egg. Fry the egg just until it’s cooked to your liking, and you’re ready to eat.

Crunchy taro scallion breads

Yùní cōngyóubĭng  芋泥蔥油餅

Taiwan

Makes 4

2 teaspoons bread yeast

2 teaspoons sugar

1 cup warm water

2 cups | 320 g Chinese flour  (or 1⅓ cups | 210 g all purpose plus ⅔ cup | 110 g pastry flour)

Fold the long edges over

About 1 cup olive oil, plus more as needed

1 teaspoon sea salt

½ cup | 100 g taro, cooked and mashed

½ cup | 50 g finely chopped green onions

½ cup | 120 ml water

Flaky salt, like Maldon

1. Sprinkle the yeast and sugar on the water and wait until the yeast foams, about 20 minutes. Place the flour in a large work bowl and mix in the yeasty liquid until you have coarse flakes, then turn it out on a board and knead until supple. (You probably won’t need more flour.) Lightly oil the bowl and toss the dough around in it to cover it with the oil. Place a towel or plastic wrap over the bowl and let the dough rise to twice its size, punch it down, and let it rise once more.

Coil the dough into a snail

2. Lightly oil your counter and a Chinese rolling pin. Have a pastry scraper ready, too. Divide the dough into 4 pieces. Working on one at a time, roll the dough out into a rectangle, about 12 x 4 inches | 30 x 10 cm. Brush the surface with around a tablespoon of oil and sprinkle it with a quarter of the salt, taro, and green onions. Fold both of the long edges over the filling and then fold it once again down the middle to form a rope. Coil the rope around to form a ball, and then flatten this with your hand. Roll out the ball to form a disc that is about ½ inch | 1 cm thick. Repeat with the other pieces of dough and filling until you have 4 raw discs. The edges of the discs will look alarmingly tattered, but that’s actually good news, as these will fry up into incredibly crunchy bits. The raw discs can be frozen at this point, if you wish; you don’t need to defrost them before frying.

Raggedy is good here

3. Set a frying pan over medium heat and have a platter lined with parchment or tempura paper ready. Pour about ¼ inch | 5 mm of oil into the hot frying pan and then slide in one of the discs. Immediately pour about 2 tablespoons water around the edge of the dough and cover the pan, as this will steam-fry the bread and ensure that the center rises quickly. Remove the cover when there’s no more steam and fry it on one side until golden brown. Flip it over, fry until the other side is also golden brown, and then remove to drain on the paper. Fry the other discs in the same way, adding more oil as needed.

4. To serve, cut the discs into quarters and sprinkle with the flaky salt. Serve while hot. If you want, you can hold the fried breads in a 275°F | 135°C oven to keep them warm, although I have been known to scarf up the still-crispy cool ones when no one is looking.

Fried gold thread buns

Happy Year of the Dog!

This is one of the first banquet foods that completely blew my mind during that initial year in Taiwan. Why fried buns like this aren’t sold everywhere in the world is beyond my comprehension. 

For, they are like doughnuts, but not as sweet. and they're like beignets, but better. And, if I'm going to get all poetic on you, these are like the toast and jam the angels must dine on. And if they don’t, I would like to know why.

Gold thread buns are a variation on silver thread buns (also known as yínsījuăn 銀絲卷), which are a variation on mántóu 饅頭, or plain steamed buns. 

Silver thread buns are, I admit, much more common just about everywhere in Taiwan and North China. And you can make them easily from this recipe by simply not adding the sweet potatoes in Step 3. It’s that simple. And this will give you something that is honestly amazing.

Steamed gold thread buns

But the sweet potatoes here are so good. They make these buns look like a gorgeous cross between sushi and eggs. Plus, that mild vegetal sweetness transforms into something magically aromatic in here.

These buns are also all about texture, for the dough threads offer up a silky quality that teases the tongue underneath the tensile outer dough wrapper. 

Mashed sweet potatoes

And that’s the reason why these buns are so beloved at big northern-style banquets, at least back when I was a student in Taipei. This was treat food reserved for holidays and weddings, not something you could get every day. And yet, even then, these hadn’t reached the absolute pinnacle of dream food status, at least in my book.

No, for that you had to fry them. And serve them with a little dish of sweetened condensed milk on the side. Yes, I understand your trepidation, since we just don’t serve bread with condensed milk in the West, but stick with me here. Try this. It’s an insane level of delicious. 

Ask your Taiwanese friends whether they’d like to try a batch and watch them start to drool as their eyes roll back into their heads. Yup, they are that good.

Wrap the mash in the dough

Fried gold thread buns

Zhá jīnsījuăn 炸金絲捲

North China

Makes 24, serves 6

1½ teaspoons bread yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

1¼ cups | 300 ml warm water

Spray oil

3 cups | 450 g Chinese flour (or ⅔ all purpose flour + ⅓ pastry or cake flour), plus extra for kneading and shaping the dough

1 tablespoon softened unsalted butter or butter substitute, or vegetable oil

½ teaspoon sea salt

¼ cup | 70 g cooked and mashed red sweet potatoes, pumpkin, or carrots

Butter up the "threads"

2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar or coconut sugar

2 tablespoons melted unsalted butter or butter substitute, or vegetable oil, divided in half

Vegetable oil, as needed

Sweetened condensed milk, homemade or store bought, as needed

1. Sprinkle the yeast and sugar over the warm water, stir them in, and wait until the yeast has a heavy head of foam, about 30 minutes. While the yeast is blooming, set up your steamer. You’ll need two baskets lined with steamer paper. Spray the paper with oil. Cover the baskets, fill the pan with water, and bring the pan to a full boil with the baskets on top. This will warm up the baskets and make them ready for the buns.

Arrange the "threads" on the white dough

2. Measure the flour into a medium work bowl and pour in the yeast mixture, butter, and salt. Mix these together to form a flaky dough, and then turn this out onto a clean work surface. Knead the dough with a bit more flour until it is as soft as an earlobe and no longer sticky. Divide the dough into approximately two-thirds and one-third. Set the large ball of dough back in the bowl and cover it with a towel to rest while you prepare your “gold threads.”

3. Pat the smaller ball of dough into a cup-like shape on a heavily floured surface and pile the mashed sweet potatoes and brown sugar into the center. Use a pastry scraper in one hand to corral the dough while you knead it with the other. Add more flour as necessary until you have a soft dough that is no longer sticky.

4. Scrape your work surface clean and then smear it lightly with oil. Flatten the orange dough out into a thin rectangle, about 18 x 9 inches | 45 x 22 cm in size. Use a pastry brush to smear half of the melted butter over the dough. Fold the dough in thirds, so that you have a packet about 6 x 9 inches | 15 x 22 cm in size. Roll this up from one of the wide edges into a cylinder about 9 inches | 22 cm long. Use a sharp knife to cut the cylinder into thin strips, about ⅛ inch | 0.3 cm wide. Lay these strips out flat on a clean work surface, brush the rest of the melted butter on them, and let them rest while you prepare the bun wrappers.

5. Scrape your work surface clean and lightly flour it. Divide the white dough in half. Working on piece at a time, roll one piece out into a thin sheet, about 20 x 7 inches | 45 x 11 cm in size. Pick up a small bunch of the orange dough threads and pull on them gently so that they turn into strings. Don’t worry if some of them break—no one will notice later on. Lay these strings lengthwise down the center of the white sheet of dough. Repeat with the orange dough threads until you have used up half of them.

6. Fold one long end of the dough over the orange dough threads and then continue to roll it up and over the orange threads to form a long rope. Pinch the end of the dough into the cylinder to seal it. Then, lightly roll the dough with the palms of your hands to even it out, and then gently pull on it to make it around 10 inches| 25 cm long.

7. Trim off the ends and cut the rope into 12 even pieces. Roll each one of the little buns to return it to a nicely round shape (see photo on the upper right). Set these on the oiled paper in the steamer and steam the buns over high heat for about 10 minutes. Once the buns have cooked through, nudge each one loose from the paper while they are still hot. Repeat with the rest of the orange and white doughs until you have formed 24 small buns. These can be frozen at this point, refrigerated and then reheated, or eaten immediately. But for pure sensory overboard, go to Step 8.

Frying up the buns

8. To fry these buns, set a 1 quart | 1 liter pan over medium-high heat and fill it with about 2 inches | 5 cm oil. The oil will be ready when chopsticks inserted in the hot oil are immediately covered with bubbles. Slide in 4 or so buns. Do not overcrowd them, as they will fry up fast, and you don’t want them to stick to each other. Turn the buns over as they brown. When they have turned a golden brown all over, remove to a plate lined with paper. Serve immediately with a saucer filled with sweetened condensed milk.