Culture

Needing a post-O-Week detox yet? While I believe in butter, smash back trays of eggs every fortnight and am pretty much the poster child for milk consumption, I am also a massive fan of these vegan steamed buns. I base them on a Jamie Oliver recipe, which I tweaked due to my lack of mushrooms, abundance of corn and obsession with hoisin sauce.

I n all honesty, there are no substitutions to make these especially vegan; by default, there are no animal products in a vego steamed bun. So don’t be scared off trying these for fear of growing a man bun in your sleep. Simply by having #vegan in our tagline we will get all the likes from the instagramming kale-consuming health kids.

Go and pick yourself up a bamboo steamer from Kmart or Unimart. They are a great way to cook your buns and veges in a flash.

Ingredients

Makes 12
Adapted from a recipe by Jamie Oliver

• 400g button mushrooms, diced somewhere between fine & rough
  
• ½ cup corn kernels, cooked (optional)
  
• 3cm fresh ginger, sliced into thin sticks
  
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
  
• 4 spring onions, sliced
  
• 1 red chilli, diced finely (include the seeds if you want an extra kick in the pants)
  
• ½ bunch coriander leaves and stems
  
• 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
  
• 2 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce
  
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
  
• 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
  
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
  
• 400g tin coconut milk
  
• 3 tins self-raising flour (fill the empty coconut milk tin 3 times)
  
• ¼ teaspoon salt
  
• 2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
  
• hoisin sauce to serve
  
• baking paper squares or muffin cases

Method

1. Pluck the coriander leaves from the stems and set aside, then finely chop the stems. Sauté the ginger, garlic, chilli and coriander stems in the sesame oil for three minutes until softened.
   
2. Throw in the chopped mushrooms, corn and sliced whites of the spring onion (leave the green tops to garnish) and continue to sauté until the mushrooms have darkened and softened. Add in the soy sauce, vinegar, hoisin and sweet chilli and simmer away until it all thickens and caramelises. Set aside.
   
3. To make the dough, stir together the coconut milk, flour and salt. Bring it together into a dough and knead briefly until smooth. Roll the dough into a thick sausage and divide into 12 equal pieces. Leave to rest for 15 minutes before rolling each piece into a disc, 10cm in diameter.
   
4. Rest a disc in the cupped palm of your hand. Fill with a tablespoon or two of the filling mixture. Bring the edges of the disc up towards the centre and pinch together. Place with the pinched side down on a square of baking paper or in a muffin case. Repeat for each of the buns.
   
5. Place half the buns in a bamboo steamer. I place my steamer over a small saucepan filled with rapidly boiling water. Any pot will do provided it can hold about 2cm of water. Steam over a rapid boil for 12 minutes.
   
6. Garnish with toasted sesame seeds, coriander leaves and slices of spring onion. Serve with hoisin sauce and steamed asian greens such as bok choy (it only takes two minutes in the top steamer layer).
   
7. Enjoy!