Ghibli Week 7: Spirited Away Steamed Buns

As we reach the end of this gastronomical (and very prolonged) journey, it's time for a bit of R&R and what better place to relax than at a bathhouse? Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し) was released in 2001 and was the first Ghibli movie I ever watched. An engrossing story with an equally incredible soundtrack, it's little wonder that even to this day, it is the highest grossing film in Japanese box office history (as per Wikipedia). 

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Food plays an integral part in Spirited Away; the parents are turned into pigs after eating the food meant for the spirits, Chihiro almost fades into nothingness until she eats something from the spirit world, the dumpling the River God gives her plays an important role later in the movie and that's just scratching the surface. The food choices I could've tried to recreate in this movie are endless but to wrap it up, I've chosen something very near and dear to my heart: the pau (or steamed bun) that Chihiro eats after a long day of working at the bathhouse.

A staple of dim sum restaurants everywhere, they're easily recognisable by their fluffy white exteriors encasing salty-sweet chunks of roasted pork (usually) but it's not uncommon to find them with varied fillings such as red bean, black sesame or salted egg custard. For these, I used a can of ready-made red bean paste (which can be found at Asian grocery stores) and I made a couple of savoury ones too.

With this one I cheated a little bit and used a package, similar to the box cake mixes, for time constraints so no recipe I'm afraid. If you've already got a solid recipe under your belt, feel free to go ahead and use that, I'm sure the end result will be the same! I think what's most important in this recipe is the kneading; you want to achieve a smooth, elastic dough in order to get the best texture and look from your pau, plus you'll get killer arm muscles so win/win; but beware of overkneading the dough otherwise they'll become tough and chewy, instead of fluffy and soft. I found the hardest part about this was folding the buns... and rather than me trying to explain how to do it, here’s a video which is pretty easy to follow, even if you can't understand Mandarin. Don’t worry about making mistakes when folding though because you can just turn it over so the folds are on the bottom and you’ll have a smooth bun, just like the ones in the movies!

So just to wrap up: massive thanks to everyone who's stuck it out, you guys are awesome. I might revisit Studio Ghibli in the future, but for now- I declare Ghibli Week officially OVER!

Available from Asian grocery stores

The contents of the bag - just add water

The savoury ones with the pleating action

Not as big as Chihiro's but still good

Savoury ones

(source) om nom nom

Happy slothing!

xx