When I was a little girl in Japan, my mother would give me money every day to buy a snack on the way home from school. This makes sense when you realize that we lived two trains, a bus and an hour and a half from school. My classmates and I would all rush to the conveniently located corner candy shop and, while they would waste their money on chocolate covered cornflake cookies (much better than they sound) and Bazooka bubblegum, I would most often head directly to the back of the store where the nikuman steamer case lived and buy myself one (or two if funds stretched that far).
These buns are not those that some of you might know from dim sum lunches in your local Chinatown, filled with sticky, chewy, sweet char siu pork. Those are utterly delicious and one of my dim sum favorites but they are nikuman's glamorous cousin. Japanese steamed pork buns are savory and filled with a delectable, rustic mound of ground pork and spices. In recent years, though the steamer cases remain ubiquitous in every mom and pop corner store in Japan, you can now buy additional flavors like pizza and curry. I remain a purist and only the original will do.
L. and I were recently craving them and, since the frozen variety from our local Asian market was not so good (I believe that L. and I even had a conversation about the word putrid), I decided to make my own. After much research on the internet I finally did and have come away with the knowledge that this is actually a really simple recipe (especially when tinkered with) and the discovery of a new and wonderful Youtube food channel that I am linking to below. I have adapted the original recipe slightly to suit my taste but the untampered version is delicious as well I'm sure, with just a little too much sesame oil for me. You could add chopped bamboo shoot, bean sprouts, water chestnuts (or even a couple of beaten egg whites) to the filling if you wanted something slightly less porky.
I forgot to take a photo of the steamed buns but above is what they looked like before I cooked them.
Makes 8 medium sized buns
Dough
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (the original recipe calls for cake flour which I did not have and the nikuman turned out just fine)
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 Tbsp sugar
2 tsps sesame oil
a little less than 1/2 cup water
Measure the dry ingredients into a bowl. I did not sift them as I feel that that is an anachronistic step left over from when flour could be lumpy or the possibility existed of insects or foreign objects lurking in it. Plus I don't believe in extraneous steps in recipes.
Add the liquids and, using your hand, mix everything together until it all comes together and forms a ball. Wrap in plastic film and let rest. The original recipe says 20 minutes but I was doing something else and did not get back to the dough for over an hour. It seemed very forgiving.
Once the dough has rested and the filling is made, divide the dough into 8 pieces. Flatten each piece into a round with a rolling pin.
Filling
1 cup ground pork
1/4 cup finely chopped cabbage
1 Tbsp finely chopped shallot
1 Tbsp sake
1/2 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp grated ginger
1 finely chopped clove garlic
1/2 tsp sesame oil
Mix all the filling ingredients together until well combined and divide into 8 portions. Form each portion into a meatball - this will simplify assembly.
To assemble, watch the video linked below (as of 2:49 for about 15 seconds if you do not have time for the entirety). Ochikeron explains dough crimping much better than I ever could. My end result (pre-cooking) is as shown above. As you can plainly see, the first one was a bit of a disaster and I got better as I went along.
I also slightly changed the cooking method as I did not want what looked in the video to be a crispy bottomed nikuman; I wanted more of a steamed dumpling. So, barely oil a frying pan. Heat over medium-high heat until a drop of water sizzles in the pan. Add the nikuman and wait 30 seconds before adding 3/4 cup of water to the pan. Cover and lower the heat to medium low. After 10 minutes remove the cover and keep cooking until all the remaining water has evaporated. As soon as it has remove the nikuman from the pan to a plate. If you possess a Chinese bamboo steamer, you can steam the buns for about 10 minutes as well - even simpler.
Serve with soy sauce for dipping.
Check out Ochikeron's youtube cooking channel and her nikuman making video, here. I find her creations absolutely charming.
Also check out the updated recipe, here, 5 years later and slightly simplified.