Name: Vegetable Bao (Tzai Bao)
Prep time: 4 min
Cook time: 13 min
Total time: 17 min
Yield: Makes 6
Cuisine: Chinese
Ingredients: ¾ teaspoon dried yeast (or 1½ teaspoons fresh yeast); 3 tablespoons light soy sauce; ¾ teaspoon baking powder; pinch of ground white pepper; dash of sesame oil; 3½ oz mung bean noodles, soaked and chopped; 1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger; small handful of gai lan (Chinese broccoli), leaves and stalks, washed and finely chopped; ½ cup warm water; 1 handful canned bamboo shoots, finely chopped; handful of woodear mushrooms, soaked for 20 minutes, finely chopped; 1 tablespoon vegetable oil; 2 dried Chinese mushrooms, soaked in warm water for 20 minutes, stalks discarded, finely chopped; 1½ tablespoons sugar; 1 shallot, crushed and finely chopped; 2 garlic cloves, crushed and finely chopped; 1⅔ cups all-purpose flour; ¾ oz mock chicken (soya or gluten substitute)

Preparation info

Makes
6

Difficulty
Medium
Ready in
20 min

Appears in

China Modern

By Ching-He Huang

Published 2006

About

The Chinese festival of Ching-Ming is when people pay their respects to deceased relatives. On these auspicious days, it was customary to be vegetarian. I recall being taken by my grandmother on one occasion to visit the grave of my great-grandfather. I was daunted by the prospect. We paid our respects and burned incense and said our prayers and I remember taking hold of my grandmother’s hand because she looked so sad. She took me in her lap and we sat on a bench and ate her homemade Tzai B