Charsiu is comfort. Back when I was a child, I was an EXTREMELY picky eater. All the caps were needed there to emphasize how I basically wouldn’t eat seafood, certain kinds of fruits(pineapples, mangoes, and blueberries) and vegetables(bitter melon understandably, lettuce, gourds of any kind, and squash), and randomly coconut flakes(but I would still eat the fresh coconut for whatever reason). But when we went to dim sum, charsiu bun were the one thing that I would eat. Charsiu is Chinese style barbecue pork. The pork, usually neck, shoulder, or belly, was slow roasted in this artificially red-colored sweet sauce, giving it a taste similar to American barbecue, but more spiced and less tangy. Traditional charsiu is dyed red with red yeast rice, but a lot of Chinese restaurants don’t use that, and opt for red number 3 food coloring instead. But not in this recipe. No sir, we are dying our charsiu red naturally with beet juice. Mostly because I try to avoid food coloring wherever I can. Food coloring just leaves a not pleasant, bitter aftertaste, whereas with beets, they have an earthy flavor, yes, but the spices help to override that and leave me with just a red coloring I could use on my pork filling! Charsiu explanation aside, and going back to the dim sum story, charsiu buns were the one thing I felt comfortable eating. Mostly because it tasted like barbecue and was served in a fluffy bun. There is literally nothing to hate on there. So needless to say, charsiu is a childhood favorite of mine, and one I still love to this day!

For my charsiu, I went with pork belly, because I wanted to render out the pork fat for other uses. I use five spice and a little ground star anise in my charsiu – five spice already contains star anise, but I like adding a little more of just that, since the licoricey flavor of it counteracts the earthiness in the beets fairly well. I then cool down that filling, which makes it solifidy into almost a clay-like consistency, and stuff it into milk bread dough. Milk bread buns are some of my personal favorite to make, because they are light and springy. I use a 3 to 2 ratio of flour to tangzhong(cooked flour and milk mixture), which guarantees a really soft dough. I love stuffing the buns just because it reminds me of my time at Milkbar, where we could do the exact same process, but with our various bread fillings, like the onion cream cheese or the cheddar-tomato plugs. Plus it is super therapeutic to knead the dough around the filling and create these perfect little balls. I finish my buns off with an egg wash for a golden brown color, and some black sesame seeds for that typical dim sum aesthetic that you would see on buns like these. You can also optionally steam these buns instead of baking them, if you want the snow-white charsiu buns instead, in which case, skip the egg wash and sesame seeds, and crimp the dough instead of rolling it around the filling, but that is up to you! I opted to bake mine, since I was serving them in an afternoon tea setting, and the steamed ones, while delicious, tend to stick to whatever surface they are served on. Overall, a bite of these took me back to my childhood.

Makes 8 buns:
For the charsiu filling:
4oz pork belly, cut into a large dice
1/4 tsp Chinese five spice
a pinch of salt
1/4 tsp ground star anise
2oz beet juice

In a pan, slowly render out the pork belly on low heat, reserving all of the rendered fat. Once the pork belly is crispy, golden brown, and has shrunk significantly in size, start by toasting off your spices with the pork belly. Then add in the beet juice, and simmer on low heat, covered, for 30 minutes. Allow the charsiu to refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before dividing into 8 balls.

For the milk bread dough:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, in 5 parts
1/4 cup milk
2 tbsp canola oil
2 eggs
a pinch of salt
1/4 cup lukewarm water
1 1/8 tsp active-dry yeast
1 tsp granulated sugar
sesame seeds

In a pot, heat up 2 parts of the flour with milk on high heat, stirring constantly until a thick paste forms. Take the paste off heat and stir in the oil, 1 egg, and the salt, mixing until combined. In another bowl, mix together the water, yeast, and sugar. Add to that bowl the remaining flour, and once the paste cools down to lukewarm, add that in as well, mixing those ingredients together to form a dough. Refrigerate the dough for 6 hours, then divide it into 8 pieces. Wrap each piece of dough around each filling, and brush the exterior with the remaining egg. Sprinkle sesame seeds on top. Allow the dough balls to rest at room temperature for 1 hour before baking at 375 degrees F for 20 minutes.