Shengjianbao

Shengjian mantou, also known as Shengjianbao, is a common and popular dish in both Taiwan and Shanghai. It’s very popular in Shanghai for breakfast and we eat it pretty much any time in Taiwan.

We usually make Shengjianbao with mince and cabbage in Taiwan and people usually use only mince and spring onion in Shanghai.

My recipe for this Shengjianbao is mince with carrots and spring onion because my husband doesn’t like the taste of cabbage so I change the recipe a little bit. I guess people who doesn’t like cabbage will like this dish as well.

Most people tolerate carrot more than cabbage and carrot has special vegetable sweetness for this dish. On the other hand, carrot is also a healthy vegetable and I tried my best to make sure my husband have his daily vegetable all the time to ensure he is happy and healthy.

Here is the recipe for this Shengjianbao.

Ingredients for filling:

100g of beef mince
200g of pork belly remove skin and chop into small dice first then use a food processor to make mince. (In most of the Chinese and Taiwanese cuisine for the filling that we like to use a little fat to make the texture taste better, such as dumplings, Chinese bun. I use pork belly because it’s easy to buy it in supermarket and it has the fat also the skinny part of meat.)
1 ½ medium size of carrot also use food processor to mince it.
2 spring onions chopped really finely
2 thin slices ginger chopped really finely

Seasonings for filling:

2 table spoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper powder
½ teaspoon sugar

Ingredients for the pastry:

250g white bread flour
250g plain flour
1 cup of water
7 g of yeast
1 pinch of salt
¼ teaspoon of sugar

Procedures:

1. Mix yeast and water together. After the yeast melt, mix everything together.
2. Knead the dough until it’s smooth without lumps and cover by cling film or clean wet kitchen napkin. After covering it up just leave it on aside for 30~40 minutes to allow it arise.
3. Mix all the ingredients and seasonings for filling together. Use both of your hands to mix it evenly.
4. Use a scale to weight up the dough 40g per one and after knead the small dough into round shape.
5. Use a rolling pin to flatten the dough and put 1 tablespoon of filling onto the flatten dough.
6. Fold it as in the procedures photos you can see and leave the Shengjianbao on aside for 10 minutes to allow the pastry arise again.

1. Use a frying pan with a lit or use 2 frying pan but 1 is bigger than the other to fry the Shengjianbao that we made.
2. Heat up a tablespoon of oil in the big frying pan with medium gas power. Put the Shengjianbao into frying pan with some space between them because the Shengjianbao will get bigger after heat it up.(I put 5 of them in one go and my frying pan is around 9” wide from IKEA.)
3. We only fry it until Shengjianbao’s button getting a little bit of  colour. Pour 1 cup of water into the pan and cover the lit or the smaller frying pan on top. We use the steam to cook the Shengjianbao.
4. Cook the Shengjianbao for 8~10 minutes until the water is dry out then it’s cook.

(This recipe can make around 20 Shengjianbao)