Manapua

I first had these at a Hawaiian restaurant in Oregon and they were amazing. I finally got around to making some at home and they turned out fantastic. BBQ Pork stuff in a steamed bun? How could you go wrong? I slow cooked the pork in some honey, brown sugar, brown bean sauce, hoisin sauce, dry sherry, white pepper, garlic, soy sauce and a hint of fish sauce for about 4 hours, until it fell apart.

For the steamed buns I used this:

1 pkg Rapid Rise yeast
1/4 Cup lukewarm water
1 1/2 Cup room temperature milk
1/2 Cup sugar
3 Tbsp canola oil
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 1/2 Cups all-purpose flour
2 Cups cake flour

Procedure
Take 1/4 cup warm water, a pinch of sugar and yeast package, combine in a small bowl and allow to stand until foamy.
In a large bowl place sugar and pour in room temperature/warm milk. Mix with wire whip until sugar is dissolved.
Add two cups of cake flour and mix well.
Add salt, baking powder and canola oil and mix well.
Add yeast mixture and mix well.
Slowly add the remaining 3 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour. Combine well, but do not knead excessively to avoid gluten formation.
Allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in size. (It takes me ~2 1/2 hours in a closed microwave with a jar of boiling water.)
Punch down, cut into ~24 pieces and form dough balls. Allow dough balls to rest for about 15 minutes.
Roll out each dough ball to a disk ~4” in diameter. (Mine look like an albino sunny side up egg. There is a large lump of dough left in the center to compensate for all the dough gathered on the bottom when closing the disk around the meat.)
Place ~1 heaping Tbsp of filler into center of disk, pinch closed and twist.
Set filled dough ball on 2” square of waxed or parchment paper, twist side down. Place bau in large steamer.

Place the steamer over a wok with about 1” of boiling water. The water should be about 2” from the bottom of the steamer.
Steam for 15 minutes, then remove from heat.

This is a new staple in our home.