Chicken and egg big bao

Reconstitute two dried shiitake in hot boiled water, hard boil two eggs as seven minute eggs, and cut half a lap cheong into chunks.

Cut half a chicken thigh into one inch chunks and marinate with a quarter teaspoon each of salt, sugar and white pepper and half a teaspoon each of cornstarch, soy sauce, oyster sauce and liaojiu; mix well, then add a drizzle of toasted sesame oil.

Dice the reconstituted shiitake, reserving the liquid, mix them through the chicken and set aside.

Hand-mince 150 g of pork leg: separate the fat out, slice it into a fine dice and set it aside, then chop the lean for about five minutes to a uniform paste.

Mix the lean pork with an eighth teaspoon salt, a quarter teaspoon sugar, an eighth teaspoon soy sauce, an eighth teaspoon white pepper powder, half a teaspoon cornstarch and a quarter teaspoon liaojiu, then stir in a tablespoon of the mushroom soaking liquid.

Toss in the diced fat with about half a teaspoon of oil and mix well.

The dough follows the sponge and dough method: make a leaven and bulk ferment it, make the main dough, knead and relax it, smooth it through a pasta maker, portion, shape, roll the wrappers, wrap, then a final proof and steam.

Dissolve one gram of instant yeast in 48 g of water, add to 100 g of cake flour, press into a ball, put it in a ziplock bag and leave about three hours — longer in a cooler climate.

The sponge is ready when it shows a lattice as you rip it open, the beehive texture, feng wo zhuang.

Mix one gram of instant yeast into 18 g of water; separately dissolve 24 g of sugar in 30 g of water; in a third bowl mix a teaspoon of baking powder with 100 g of cake flour.

Add the flour mix to the sponge, mix quickly, add the yeast water, mix again, then the sugar water, and form a dough.

Knead about six minutes, continuously folding the dough over itself to develop the gluten, until smooth and almost play-doh like.

Work in 10 g of lard, knead another two minutes, then cover and let relax 30 minutes.

Pass the dough through a pasta maker on the widest setting, folding it in half each time, seven times in total.

Roll it tightly into a log and cut three sections of about 110 g each.

Shape each section by pressing it flat and folding the edges into the centre, then set it crinkly side down and twist it into a ball as you would shape bread; rest five minutes.

Roll each ball flat a couple of times in each direction, then thin the sides with the edge of the rolling pin, leaving the centre hefty enough to hold the filling and the edges thin enough to pleat. The wrappers want to be about 20 centimetres wide.

Using a bowl to help, put in three tablespoons of pork filling, spread it even, nestle in a third of the lap cheong, three tablespoons of chicken filling and the egg.

Grab the edge and work around pleating; the more pleats the better it looks. Pinch it up at the very centre.

Set the bao on parchment paper and proof over 35 centigrade water for 15 minutes.

Set the steamer over heavily bubbling water and steam over high for 20 minutes.