Fried Chicken Bao with a Cilantro Lime Crema
A fluffy, sweet bun filled with spicy fried chicken and topped with vegetables and crema to cool it down.
Equipment
- Steamer
- Stand Mixer
Ingredients
Steamed Bao Buns
- ½ cup water warm
- ½ cup milk warm
- 1 T instant yeast
- 2 T sugar
- 3 T olive oil
- 2 ¾ cup all-purpose flour
- 2 T sugar
- ½ t baking powder
- ½ t salt
Spicy Fried Chicken
- 3 chicken breasts diced
- 1 cup buttermilk
- ½ t salt
- ½ t pepper
- ½ t garlic powder
- 1 ½ cups flour for breading
- ½ t pepper
- ½ t thyme
- ½ t paprika
- 1 t baking powder
- ¼ t red pepper flakes
- vegetable oil for frying
- 4 T soy sauce
- 2 T gochujang
- 2 T honey
- 2 T brown sugar
- 2 T ginger
- 1 splash lemon juice
- salt and pepper to taste
- carrots julienned
- green onion cut small
Cilantro Lime Crema
- 1 cup sour cream
- ¼ cup cilantro
- 1 lime
- 1 clove garlic minced
- sea salt
- olive oil
Instructions
Making the Bao Buns
- Combine the water, milk, yeast, 2 T sugar, and oil in a small mixing bowl. Set it to the side.
- Combine the flour, 2 T sugar, baking powder, and salt in a stand mixer.
- Turn your stand mixer on a low setting and slowly begin adding your wet ingredients to your dry.
- Once, all of the ingredients are incorporated together, use your dough hook to continue kneading for about 5 minutes.
- Form dough into a ball and place back into the stand mixer bowl and cover with saran wrap. Let it rise in a warm place for 2 hours.
- After it has risen, place the dough ball on a clean, lightly floured working surface. Using a rolling pin, roll your dough out until it is about 1/4 inch thick.
- Using a circle cutter or a circular drinking glass, cut as many circles as you can out of your dough.
- Ball up whatever dough is left over, and roll it out and cut your circles shapes out once again, repeating until you have no dough left.
- Pour some olive oil into a bowl and and have a food brush on hand.
- Brush the entire surface of your bao circle with olive oil, and fold it in half, forming it into a bun. Repeat for all bao circles.
- Cover and let it rest for an additional 1 hour.
- After the dough is rested, place your steamer into a large pot, wok, or cast iron pan of water and bring it to a boil. Make sure it isn't filled up too high with water so that the bottom tier of your steamer does not fill with water.
- Once water is boiling, place your bao buns into the steamer and steam for about 10 minutes.
Spicy Fried Chicken
- Dice your chicken breasts.
- In a large bowl, add your diced chicken, buttermilk, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Let it sit for 1-2 hours.
- Mix together flour, salt, pepper, garlic powder, thyme, paprika, baking powder, and red pepper flakes.
- Bring a pot of vegetable oil to 375 F.
- Coat your chicken in the flour mixture and fry until it's a golden brown color. Let it drain after frying.
- In a saucepan, combine gochujang, honey, brown sugar, soy sauce, ginger, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Mix it over heat until combined and reduced.
- Coat your fried chicken in the sauce.
Cilantro Lime Crema
- Combine the sour cream, cilantro, juice of 1 lime, minced garlic, a drizzle of olive oil, and sea salt. Let it set in the refrigerator.
Assembling the Bao Buns
- Get together your steamed buns, fried chicken, julienned carrots, chopped green onions, and cilantro lime crema.
- Place 2 or 3 pieces of fried chicken into the bao bun.
- Top with carrots and green onions.
- Drizzle some of the crema on top.
- Enjoy!