Guabao is the ultimate combination of flavors and textures. A taiwanese classic, it's typically a decadent piece of pork belly placed in a soft, fluffy, warm bun. We sous vide pork belly making it melt-in-your-mouth delicious AND crisping up the bottom of the bun to give that next level texture.
Recipe Set your sous vide to 170F. In a dry pan toast the star anise, dried chillies, cinnamon stick, and white pepper until fragrant. Place into a spice bag and set aside. In a saucepan over medium melt the rock sugar and cook until caramelized. Once a dark caramel colour is achieved turn the heat down to low and add water to thin it out. Stir constantly so that it thins out. Add in shaoxing wine, dark soy sauce, and light soy sauce. Bring back to a boil then set aside to cool. Slice the pork belly into ¾” strips against the grain. Then slice into pieces slightly larger than your bun. Approximately 2-3” wide. In a large vacuum bag, place the pork slices, the cooled sauce, scallions and ginger. If you do not have a vacuum sealer with a pulse function or can deal with liquids, cut your bag larger so that you can clip it to the side of your container. Vacuum and seal the bag. Sous vide for 24 hours.
While you wait you can prepare the Stir Fried Suan Cai: - Soak the Suan Cai in a bowl for 10 minutes. - Drain and wring out - Soak again for another 10 minutes in clean water. - Drain and wring out again. - Dice the preserved vegetables and set aside. - Warm a pan on medium heat, add oil, and chillies. - Fry until fragrant, then add the diced preserved vegetables. - Fry for 3-4 minutes, then add in the garlic. Toss around to incorporate, and cook for another 3-4 minutes. Set aside.
Once the time is up remove the pork belly from the sous vide, drain out the liquid and separate out the oil. Pour the remaining sauce into a pan and bring it to a boil. Strain it to remove any coagulants and pour it back into the pot. Bringing it back to a boil, flavor with sugar and 5 spice powder. Lower the heat to low. Add water to the cornstarch to make a slurry. Pour into the sauce. Allow it to thicken up so that it can coat the back of a spoon, but still runny. Take it off the heat and set aside.
To finish the pork, brush on a good layer of sauce and caramelize in a frying pan or using a blow torch.
Crispy Bottom Bun Heat a frying pan over medium heat. Add a little bit of oil and heat up until shimmering. Place frozen bao in the frying pan then add water to cover the bottom of the pan. Place on lid to allow the buns to steam. Once the water has mostly evaporated, open the lid and allow the oil to fry and crisp the bottom. Remove once it’s nice and golden brown.
Putting it all together. Open up the bun, brush on some of the pork sauce or use hoisin. Add some cilantro, place on the pork piece, add some suan cai, and top with some peanuts. Open wide and eat it. ---------------------------------------------------------------
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Today we're making a Taiwanese specialty, guabao.
This is the perfect bun. It is sweet, it's savory, it's rich, it's everything you want.
And we're going to take it to the next level by crisping up the buns.
It's usually eaten during festivals and celebrations.
It's in the shape of a little wallet, like a little coin purse.
And so that's to symbolize that's going to bring you great fortune. So eat tons.
Actually, I don't think you can because we're using pork belly.
You're going to want to find the thickest cut of pork belly you can get.
Yeah, kind of like mine right there.
For the marinade, we're going to caramelize some rock sugar.
In Chinese, this is called chaotangshe, frying the sugar color.
It will add some color and a hint of sweetness to our dish.
When it reaches a deep caramel color, add in some water to thin it out.
Add in your shaoxing wine, dark and light soy sauce.
After it comes back to a boil, leave it aside to cool.
For your spices, we have cinnamon, white pepper, dried chilies, and star anise.
Toast them lightly in a dry pan on low heat.
When it is fragrant, set aside to cool as well.
Traditionally, there should be five layers. I think we have five.
Skin, fat, meat, fat, meat. So that's five.
Ain't no one got time for this.
Scrape off the thin hairs, then cut or saw the meat into three quarter inch slices against the grain.
So we're going to cut to the size of our bun,
but cut it larger than your bun because these things are going to shrink.
I was in the pool.
I cut a really big bag so I can fit all this in.
Carefully place this in a single layer with some space.
Look at the size of these scallions. It only took all summer for Carmen to grow these.
Follow me on Instagram if you want to see my gardening adventures.
Roughly chop up your scallions and slice your ginger.
Take all your goodie sauce here and pour it in.
So all that work to make the layers? Useless.
Make sure that they all just clump up.
No, I'm just kidding.
Try and get them back into one layer.
Now for the most difficult task here is...
No!
What?
The ginger and the scallion.
Oh yeah. Oh, and the spices.
My goodness.
So scallions are going to go in.
We have our spice bag and put all of this spices in.
This goes in here now.
One layer as much as possible.
As much of the liquid at the bottom as possible and put it in.
If you have a pulse function, this is the time to use it.
If you do not, then I recommend you cut your bag a little larger and don't even bother.
Just vacuum seal it.
Just clip it off the side and that's it.
And as always, double seal.
Let me show you my goods.
That sounded so wrong.
Let me show you my pork belly.
This one.
Into the sous vide.
Sous vide or sous vide, however you want to say it,
at 107 degrees Fahrenheit or 76 degrees Celsius for 24 hours.
Fast forward to the next day.
We're going to make the pickled mustard green
that's going into our guabao.
In Chinese, that's suancai.
So that's like sour vegetables, kind of like a Chinese sauerkraut.
That's going to cut the fattiness and balance out the flavor of the pork.
These pickled mustard greens, you can buy them at the Chinese supermarket.
Soak them for 10 minutes, drain it out,
and then wring them so all that salt comes out and then soak it for another 10 minutes.
While the suancai is soaking, mince some garlic and dice up your chili.
Drain it, wring it, and dice it.
We've actually made the suancai before in the Taiwanese beef noodle soup,
and that recipe, if you haven't seen it yet, it is amazing.
Go check it out.
So here are the amount of suancai that I have.
It's actually more than you need for the guabao,
but I like making extra and just keeping it in the fridge,
putting it on rice and eating it as a little side dish.
Warm up some oil on medium heat and add your chilies.
Stir fry until fragrant, then add your diced preserved mustard greens.
Fry for three to four minutes, then add in your minced garlic.
Toss around to incorporate and cook for another three to four minutes.
Give it a little taste and you can add salt or sugar to adjust the flavor.
Set aside.
We also blitz some candied peanuts for our toppings.
You can go as fine or coarse as you like.
Gotta keep this liquid gold.
Look at this fatty piece of pork here.
All the layers here, all the nice fat.
What's the point of wearing gloves?
So you need to be careful when you're removing it from the bag
because some pieces are tender.
They might have shifted a bit.
So you can see there's like a nice fat separation here between fat and the liquid.
We don't want any of the fat.
We're just going to strain this out into our pot.
Sauce pan.
I'm special.
All right, so that leaves you with just the fat.
You don't want that.
It clogs all your arteries.
Not good for you because that stuff is okay.
This stuff?
First thing we're going to do is just bring the sauce to a boil.
We're going to strain out all of those little coagulants.
Those will solidify and then we're going to strain it out.
Otherwise, you have a lumpy sauce.
I guess there's none today.
Pour the sauce back into the pan.
Let's flavor up some more.
Add some sugar and five spice powder to taste.
Give that a mix.
We're going to go in with a little bit of a cornstarch slurry because our sauce is already salty.
If we continue to cook it down, it's just going to get saltier and saltier until it's inedible.
So using the cornstarch slurry will help us to achieve what we need.
So let's go in.
Bring it back up to a boil.
And you're looking for this type of consistency.
So I have these buns.
I did not make them myself because I am terrible with doughs.
So I bought them.
They're frozen.
Why are you smelling it?
Normally these things are steamed, but we're going to try to do something a little different today.
We are going to make a crispy bottom.
It's something similar to what we did for our dumpling recipe.
So we're going to need a couple of things aside from the buns.
We need some oil, some water, and a lid and frying pan.
Put some oil in the pan.
So we're going to turn this pan to a medium.
I'm just going to put that in there.
Give it a little swirl.
Okay, you hear that little bit of crackling?
No, probably not.
So we're going to add our water and that's to steam it.
And then we're going to close the lid.
When the water has almost evaporated, remove the lid.
Now we just wait for the bottom to crisp and hopefully not burn.
So we're about there.
Just give you a peek.
Is it brown?
All right.
So once it's brown, we can take it off.
Our pork's still a little hot, so we're going to use the blow torch.
If your pork is no longer hot, brush it with sauce and sear it in your frying pan.
Now for the grand finale.
Brush some sauce on that bun.
You can use hoisin here as well.
Add your cilantro, your juicy and delectable piece of pork belly,
swan's eye.
Don't add too much because it's a little salty.
And top it off with some candied peanuts.
