(serves 20)
This year for our annual St Barnabas Christmas Carols event we had a food stall selling pulled pork bao's (包 Bao = chinese word for bun). There has been a reasonably recent trend of bao's in Sydney, with one of the leaders being Mr. Bao who has adopted a Taiwanese street food - gua bao's. I've never actually had the original Taiwanese one, but the fusion ones that Mr Bao (and other chains) have come up with are a pretty mind-blowing bite!
Somehow Christmas has just crept up on us this year, and we are so thankful that we had Grace on the cooking team! She really halved the load and brought creativity and enthusiasm to the table/kitchen! We started out with the idea of pulled pork sliders, then decided to give it an asian twist, then we moved onto steamed man-tou's (another form of steamed asian bun), before finally our Taiwanese friend Lily told us to just look for gua bao's. Lo and behold, the asian grocery store is full of surprises, and this was much more practical for steaming, stuffing and serving quickly!
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| Pulled pork team! |
The recipe we used is reasonably simple, but as we were preparing for 120-150 portions, we decided to branch out and make a gluten-free sauce so that would be an option on the day.
As an aside, I have to say i was shocked that so many asian sauces have wheat flour! In the end, we went with a selection of Ayam sauces that are gluten-free and Paul made up a gluten-free char-siu sauce replacement that could be quite handy in the future!
For the pork, we definitely found using the slow-cooker much better than the stove-top, though it was still possible on the stove top but needed only 3-4 hours and needed to be on low heat the whole time. I've included the quantities we used for mass cooking just as a future reference and for amusement's sake, for those who are as amused by huge quantities of food as I am.
I have modified this recipe now (in 2024) as I no longer make small quantities - may as well make a big batch in the slow cooker and freeze some or give some away!
Prep time: 30 min
Cooking time: 3-8 hours (3-4 hrs on stove-top, 5-8hrs on slow-cooker)
Ingredients
4kg skinless pork shoulder/pork neck
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 stalks lemongrass, outer layer removed
6 garlic cloves, crushed
2 x3cm ginger piece, skin off
400 g char-siu sauce (or gluten-free replacement below)
1 cup rice vinegar
4 T fish sauce
8 T sugar
6x10 gua bao’s (store-bought from Asian grocer in the frozen section)
Kewpie (Japanese) mayonnaise (to serve)
Asian Slaw
1/4 cabbage (approx 1 cup shredded)
1/4 red cabbage (approx 1 cup shredded)
2-3 carrots, peeled and shredded or finely grated
½ cup mint leaves
2 green shallots, thinly sliced on the diagonal
1 T toasted sesame seeds
seeds of half a pomegranate (optional)
Slaw Dressing (or roasted sesame dressing from the bottle)
¼ C olive oil
1/8 C rice wine vinegar
juice of ½ lime
1.5 T honey
1 T sesame oil
salt
2. Sauté the onions on medium heat in a saucepan for a few minutes,
add the garlic, ginger and lemongrass to release the aroma. Remove and place in the slow cooker (or deep saucepan).
3. Cut the pork into 3cm thick chunks.
4. Sear the meat in the pan, then place on top of the onion mix in the slow cooker.
6. Turn the slow cooker onto low and cook for 5-8 hours, basting after 2-3 hours and checking for when the pork just falls apart when poked with a fork. Remove each piece of pork from the sauce and
gently tease and pull the meat apart with 2 forks. Drizzle over with half the sauce, or enough to coat and moisten the meat.
7. To make the Asian slaw, thinly slice (or use a food processor) the cabbage and carrot. Finely slice the shallots and mint. Prepare the dressing by combining the ingredients and season to taste. Toss all the vegetables, pomegranate, sesame seeds and dressing in a large mixing bowl.
8. Steam gua boas for 10 minutes.
9. Allow to cool slightly before
assembling. Top with a couple of spoonfuls of the pulled pork mixture and a spoonful of
some Asian slaw. Drizzle with Jap mayo and serve immediately.
Ingredients (for 140 buns)
11kg pork shoulder
2 kg onion
11 stalks lemongrass
ginger
14 packets of gua bao's (10 in each pack)
1 red cabbage
1 savoy cabbage
2kg carrots
1 bunch shallot
2 bunches mint
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| 2 slow-cookers worth of 5.5kg of pork shoulder = 11kg! |
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| Our half of the goods - 5.5kg of meat, way too much salad and we cleared out the whole of Kingsford/Randwick of buns! |
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| Set-up on the day; Grace on steamers, me on pork distribution, Paul on the salad bench and Lily on money! Also featuring the awesome sign that Lily drew up for us - felt like such a professional stall! Praise God for a successful day! Note Gluten-free char-siu sauce (optional) - may need to double or triple for the slow cooker 3 T Ayam Hoi sin sauce 2 T Ayam Oyster sauce 1 T Ayam soy sauce 1 .5 T honey ½ tsp corn flour 2 cloves garlic, finely crushed 1/2 tsp of salt 1/2 tsp miso paste 1/4 tsp five spice |
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