Baozi
Baozi are Chinese buns made from leavened wheat dough wrapped around savory or sweet fillings and cooked by steaming.
Yeast-leavened dough: Dough raised by yeast fermentation, which produces gas and gives baked or steamed bread a soft texture. Its fermentation creates the light, pillowy wrapper characteristic of many baozi.
Dough fermentation: Microbial activity in dough that produces gases and flavor compounds as yeast or bacteria consume sugars. Fermentation expands baozi wrappers and develops their characteristic breadlike texture.
Char siu bao: A Cantonese steamed bun filled with diced barbecued pork in a sweet, savory sauce. It is a prominent regional baozi variety with a distinctive barbecue-pork filling.
Mantou: A Chinese steamed wheat bun, usually plain and unfilled. The distinction between filled baozi and plain mantou clarifies how the food’s name is used.
Wheat flour: A powder milled from wheat grains and used to make breads, noodles, and other foods. Wheat flour supplies the gluten-forming structure of the bun wrapper.
Gluten: A network of wheat proteins that gives dough elasticity and helps it retain gas. Gluten lets the wrapper stretch around filling without easily tearing.
Shengjian mantou: A Shanghai-style pan-fried bun with a leavened wrapper and juicy pork filling. It shares a bun-and-filling format with baozi but is pan-fried rather than steamed.
Zhuge Liang: A Chinese statesman and military strategist of the Three Kingdoms period, later associated with legends about mantou. A popular origin legend credits Zhuge Liang with introducing buns resembling baozi.
Chinese cooking techniques: Methods used to prepare food in Chinese culinary traditions, including steaming, stir-frying, and braising. Baozi combine dough preparation, filling, shaping, and steaming within this broader repertoire.
Chinese pleating: A hand-folding technique that gathers dough into a series of small, regular pleats. Pleating closes many baozi and concentrates the folds at the top.