A couple of weekends ago, I fulfilled a long-standing ambition – to learn how to make baozi.

Baozi are one of my favourite things to eat in China, and for anyone who knows me, that is high praise indeed. There’s just something about them that is hugely comforting, and biting through their soft, fluffy dough to reach the rich filling inside never fails to make me absurdly happy. They were one of the first foods I got addicted to here, and when living in our first apartment Cam and I would often buy them from nearby shop whose elderly proprietor we nicknamed ‘The Baozi Man’, because as well as selling baozi, he looked like one too.

Good baozi, though, is hard to find, especially in southern Chengdu, where rice reigns supreme. Wheat products like baozi are much more commonly eaten in the North, and so it was appropriate that it was my friend Xixi, whose father is from Northern Shandong province, who was my baozi master the other day. (As a lovely aside, Xixi’s mother is from Sichuan – so in her family, for lunch they eat Sichuan food, and for dinner they eat Northern-style).

Sadly, because it was evening when we made our baozi, I didn't get many good photos of the process (unlike when I learnt how to make jiaozi); here are the baozi wrapped and ready to be steamed…

And here are the finished products, with an excited Xixi.

We made two different fillings, one meat and one vegetarian, and ate it with spicy radish pickle, a tomato and cucumber salad and a European-style stew. The baozi were, needless to say, ridiculously tasty, and for me, miles better than any shop bought version I’ve ever tasted. They were so good in fact, that in spite of the long preparation needed, I can say with some certainty that this will not be the last time I make homemade baozi.