Baked Manapua

One of the things I miss about home is the food, and that includes manapua. Of course I can find manapua here in the mainland, but usually only at Dim Sum (and then it's called char siu bao).

Needless to say, I was pretty excited to see this recipe for baked manapua on the My Food Affair blog. It seemed manageable enough, so I tried it out tonight. Oh my goodness was it yummy. This is the first Chinese food I have made that actually tastes right.

As far as the recipe goes, I had a little bit of a hard time with the dough since it was so sticky. It probably should have been mixed more in the bowl...guess I am too used to using a food processor to make pizza dough. And then I had a little bit of a hard time with stuffing the char siu filling into the dough and making nice little bao. Tip for anyone else trying to make this recipe: don't worry too much about making the manapua perfect because the dough smooths out a bit when you let it rise for 30 minutes before putting it in the oven.

I did not know what is in an egg wash, so I checked the internet and found several examples. I used an egg wash of one egg yolk and one teaspoon of water; a mixture that I found on The Pie Maven blog. Finally, I was concerned about making the char siu tough/dry since it's already been cooked but the five minute saute was perfect and the filling turned out just fine.

I'm not posting this recipe, but you can find it on the My Food Affair blog.