For Thanksgiving at Siddharth’s house, I decided to skip the typical dinner rolls and make authentic Chinese steamed rolls called mantou. These are steamed wheat buns that are shaped like little pebbles, a staple in northern China.  I had these at my grandma’s house a lot in lieu of a bowl of rice. They could be purchased at any Asian food markets in the frozen aisle. The texture of the mantou is similar to the buns you would order at Chinese restaurants for dim sum also called bao, but these buns don’t have anything inside. Our family would eat it as a side with our meals. Some people eat them as snacks by dipping them in condensed milk or even deep frying them! I’ve never tried, but I’m sure these would be delightful too.

The recipe is quite simple but it takes some time because the dough has to rise. If you do decide to deep fry them, we suggest you steam first, let cool, and then deep fry.

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp instant yeast
• 1 tsp sugar
• 5 tbsp warm water
• 5 tbsp warm milk
• 1 ¾ cups AP flour 
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp fat (melted butter or canola oil are fine)
• ¾ tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt

Proof the yeast by combining the top 3 ingredients first. The water needs to be fairly warm, and you’ll know the yeast are activated when bubbles form. In a food processor, combine the dry ingredients, then add the activated yeast mixture and 5 tbsp of warm milk. Form dough and let rise for 4 hours.  Punch down, divide into 16 pieces and shape by rolling into spirals. Let rest for 15 minutes. Steam for 15 minutes, and watch the mantou puff up and look beatuiful! Mantou will go well with meats (use in place of rice for a Chinese meal) and other main courses, or you could use them in place of Thanksgiving rolls as we did.