Steaming buns without a bamboo steamer

16 years ago

Hubby and little man love Chinese steamed buns but I only have a veggie steamer at home. Have tried steaming buns in it with less than good results. The buns tasted good and looked big in the steamer but they collapsed as soon as I opened the lid. The color also turned yellow and the surface appeared to be dimpled. I believe all these were results of water dripping down on the buns. There is a small steam basket that I could use and cover it with tin foil but it's too small to put even just two buns in it.

We have been looking for a right size bamboo steamer for two weeks with no luck. I have just made some ground pork and would like to steam some ground pork buns. Is there a way to steamed buns without a bamboo steamer and not having the water dripped back on the buns?

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Comments (12)

lindac
16 years ago
Never tried it....but perhaps if you put a small basket over a steamer it would hold some of the steam and allow the drip factor to escape...
I think part of the trick is to not have a "lid" that is metal and will cause condensation...so in the absence of a bamboo steamer....a basket should work....shouldn't it?
althetrainer
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks for the thought, Linda! The lid of my veggie steam is plastic but it still collects vapors and drips... I know if I use the small plastic "basket" (came with the veggie steamer) inside the steamer and cover the "basket" with a piece of tin foil, that will protect the buns from drips. Unfortunately, the basket is just too small to be practical. I am thinking... maybe I put something loose like cheesecloth over the steamer instead of the solid lid. But again, it may not work because the temperature then will not be high enough. Just thinking out loud.

Al
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Dzane, your asparagus sounds delicious--if it weren't asparagus. I might do that for company. Thanks! :) I hate cooked asparagus. The teeny weeny ones, blanched rather than cooked, are the exception. ;) In general, for daily use, I'd rather have steamed vegetables that just taste like themselves than add any oil or seasoning. I'll do the roast with a little oil thing for a "dish" rather than just veg for the sake of veg. We have excellent produce, so we eat a lot of raw or steamed veg and enjoy the natural flavors. That's something a steamer really helps with! 1) Yes, of course, one gets inventive. I can't really think of examples right now. Often, I'll come up with something to cook and I think, oh, I should zap some steam to it. I especially use it for things that I want to have cooked but not changed in texture. Convenience is my primary use, a second oven is the secondary use. I like to keep a lot of finished vegetables around so they can just be grabbed out of the fridge. I also often cook for dozens so capacity is important. Like the gigantabird in the big oven and the meat in the combi-. 2) In my old kitchen, I baked all kinds of things in a dreadful gas oven with no temperature regulation. Unless your gas ovens are for meat and you don't want to kasher them, or if you're baking while dinner is cooking, I don't know why you wouldn't use them. You just have to pay a little attention while you're learning your specific ovens' peculiarities. People overstate the difference between gas and electric. I haven't baked in the combi-steam. Anything that will bake on convection only should be fine, as long as it's not too big. Plus, there are things that you'd ordinarily need a bain marie for, that you can just turn on the steam for. The manual lists the following as examples with temperature and steam (or not) settings (these examples are for showing the different settings, not a complete list of what can be baked): Apple tart Bagels Swiss roll Small flaky pastry cakes Bread (2 lb) Bread rolls (4 oz each) Bread rolls (pre-baked) Brioche (5 cups of flour) Macaroons Ring cake (yeast dough) Fruit pie made with yeast dough Cookies Quiche fruit tart Sponge cake Cream puffs Onion pie 3) I do have a warming drawer (and need both it and the combi- at the same time). The combi-steam doesn't have a warming setting, per se, but it goes down to 85 degrees, which is good for plate warming (and apparently some kind of fish). There's no way a big ol' pizza box is going to fit. My big Pyrex does fit, barely. It's about 17" x 12". The 2/3 sheet pans that come with it are about 14"x12.5". There's about 8.5" of usable height. It's a small cavity. It holds a heck of a lot, given the size, but I think of it as a half size oven. So whether it would work for warming for you depends on the size of what you want to warm.
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Detox, I have the Gaggenau, so can't fully answer your questions. That said: 1. If you own one do you use it enough to warrant the $6000 price tag? If you're asking, probably not. You can achieve much the same effect for baking and roasting by putting a ramekin of water in your regular oven. In fact, I've recently started baking crusty breads and rather than wrangling them into the combi-steam, I put them in my big oven on my big pizza stone with a ramekin of water on a shelf (the usual, is a smaller pizza stone on a rack with a pan of water below). The same method works for roasts, or whatever you want to keep moist. The big difference is in blanching, steaming and poaching. I despise blanching and steaming on the stove. It works perfectly well with a pot and steamer insert, a bamboo steamer box in a wok or big pan, or a flower style folding steamer in a regular pot. It works in the microwave, either with just a spoonful of water in the bottom of the pot, or with an MW flower steamer. Or, that did work well until I was making a lot of veg for company and my favorite Pyrex pot broke from repeated thermal shocks. If $6000 is worth it to you to not have to do any of this the old fashioned way, it's worth it. If you'd rather have money than convenience, it's not. I should say that mine is fully plumbed. If I had to bother with a tank, I might think it wasn't worth it. Some people do the blanching/steaming/poaching in the steam oven not from laziness, like me, but to clear the cooktop for other tasks. Again, you can pay yourself for a lot of extra cooking hours to get it all done for quite some time with the money you'd save from the oven. But if you want it, ah, that's another story. It's not a fad. It's that technology caught up with the way people like to cook. Steaming is a classic technique. The steam oven removes some of the onus. But if it just seems like a clever toy to you, rather than the most beloved thing you could have in your kitchen, then it is. The worth is entirely in personal perception. I can't think of one thing I can make in my combi-steam that I couldn't contrive by conventional means. It's just a lot easier.
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Thanks Jim! The buns did turn out better than expected. I've decide, instead of getting another steamer I will get a wok. We already have a bamboo steamer but it's bigger than all the pots and pans that we have. My initial thought was to buy a smaller bamboo steamer. But now I see a smaller size bamboo steamer is no difference than the veggie steamer that we have. In that case, it's still impossible to steam more than 5 buns at a time. To solve this problem, we need a big wok. We never have a wok because we don't have space for it. Now I want one for steaming. If we're going to get a big one we will have to keep it in the basement; only to bring it to the kitchen on need basis. Al
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Rachelellen, check out my buns! (Chinese steamed, that is)
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Guess what happened? I went over to a friend's house the other day to help her hang a mirror and I noticed that she had the old, Time Life series, "Foods of the World" cookbooks. My mother had those books when I was a kid, and I started thumbing through a few of them, reminiscing. I found the pictorial instructions on how to shape the flower buns that I first learned from! I know the text can't be read, so I'll type it up: 1. For each roll, pair two sliced rounds of dough, standing one on the other. 2. Push down firmly on each pair with a chopstick or blunt edge of a knife to press the rounds together. 3. Pinch both ends of the rounds together and pull them slightly away from one another. 4. Draw the ends of the rounds backward around the main part of the roll until they meet behind it. 5. Pinch the ends firmly together with your thumb and forefinger to secure them and keep the roll in shape. 6. Stand the roll pinched side down. It will look like a flower with teh oiled layers separated into petals. That cookbook series was probably one of the main factors in firing me with a desire to explore, try, and learn to cook the foods of other cultures. The recipes were fairly authentic, a good variety was provided in every book, and they were filled with details about the countries, the peoples, and the cultures. Also plenty of color pictures of the food, the people and the scenery.
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jimster
16 years ago
For your purposes, as someone who would get a lot of use out of them, bamboo steam baskets (plural because they stack) would be a good investment. I wouldn't give up on finding them. Diameter isn't critical if you set them in a wok.

Bamboo steam baskets are readily available in Asian markets. You are in Canada, right? I don't know about shipping from on-line sources but they are available at reasonable prices.

I have also seen it recommended to place crossed chop sticks (large ones I would guess) in a wok to support a dish. With a wok cover, this becomes a steamer. I haven't tried it because I have the baskets. My rice cooker has an aluminum steamer "basket" which fits on top. I've used this for vegetables but not for steamed buns.

Jim

Here is a link that might be useful: Bamboo Steam Baskets
cotehele
16 years ago
Is this what you are looking for?

Here is a link that might be useful: bambo steam baskets
lindac
16 years ago
don't use plastic or foil....as you see with the real thing...it's a basket which absorbs moisture and still allows the steam to escape...
althetrainer
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks Jim and Cotehele for the links. Jim, I am not saying that I had given up on looking for a bamboo steamer. The Superstore normally carries the right size of bamboo steamers I need but those were sold out and the store hasn't restocked. The reason I need a cheat is that I have promised my family to make steamed buns this weekend. Plus, I would like to use the pork I ground today.

Al
jimster
16 years ago
I see. Good luck with the buns this week-end. Everyone I know loves them.

Jim
teresa_nc7
16 years ago
Two things to try:

~ put lettuce leaves on your metal steamer, then set the buns on the leaves

~ put a cotton or linen dish cloth/tea towel between the buns and the lid of the pot you are steaming in; be careful that the cloth doesn't hang down far enough to catch fire!

Teresa
rachelellen
16 years ago
I can't think that the problem is your lack of the bamboo baskets. In the first place, I have never owned any and have made a variety of dim sum and other Chinese foods with the same sort of jury-rigged steamer that my old friend Mrs. Yee used. A large pot with tight fitting lid, and one to three tuna cans with both ends cut out on which a plate, rack or bowl sits above the level of the water. Well, nowadays tuna cans can't be opened with a can opener on both sides, so you have to search for ingredients that come in like-sized cans you are able to open on both sides or use a tuna can with the lid pulled out and the bottom savaged open with tin shears or something.

Actually, if you have access to a good Chinese goods store, you can find small wire stands that are meant to go into the pot with the water for the same purpose. There are also funny looking, three legged tongs made to lift the bowl or plate out of the steaming pot.

In any case, many restaurants that specialize in dim sum use the stainless steel, stacking steamers rather than the bamboo, and their dim sum turns out just fine.

My suspicion is that your filling might be too moist or that there might be a problem in the dough you're using. I found a pretty good article on it...

Here is a link that might be useful: Perfect Bao dough
jimster
16 years ago
Could it be that flatter lids are more apt to drip condensation than more dome-shaped ones? I think this is true but I don't know if it explains your situation, Al.

Jim
Marigene
16 years ago
I have used an old metal (aluminum) colander, with the little feet, that I took the handles off so that it would fit into a large pot. I now have a couple sizes of the steaming baskets.
althetrainer
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks everyone! I did make them this afternoon - took 3 hours to rise, together 5 hours to make - Little man and hubby really liked the buns. Well worth the time and efforts. I will post pictures in a different thread.

Al

Steaming buns without a bamboo steamer

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Steaming buns without a bamboo steamer

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