steamed chicken buns

It took awhile before I was able to try a recipe from Andrea Nguyen's Asian Dumplings cookbook so I was happy to finally make these steamed buns with chicken filling. The filling may be made a day or two ahead and kept in the refrigerator until ready to use. This saved me a lot of time while I concentrated on making the dough. In the Philippines, we call these siopao and it's a well loved snack that's usually served with chicken, pork or beef egg noodle soup called mami. There are many other filling variations but this savory filling with chicken is one of the most popular. It's very common to find restaurants in the Philippines serving siopao and mami. It's just one of the many foods that Filipinos love to combine.

steamed siopao with white and soft like a pillow dough

This particular recipe from the Asian Dumplings cookbook was easy to make with diced skinless chicken thighs and seasoned with a combination of soy sauce, brown sugar and oyster sauce. I trimmed most of the fat from the chicken thighs before cooking. Adding quartered hard-boiled eggs was also suggested. I found a very good recipe for the siopao dough from Jun Belen's foodblog.