Making Nikuman
When you can’t buy it you have to make it…
Nikuman are steamed dumplings with a meat or curry filling but it’s the texture that sets these delicious snacks apart from other dumplings.
I meet them in Japanese convenience stores and it was love at first taste.
A few years after leaving Japan I still crave these little pork buns! Foods are different when made in another country. For example, authentic German brötchen or Italian pizza are nearly impossible to find in the US because flour and cheese are processed differently not to mention the marketing reality that just about everything you buy is tweaked to local taste buds. (FYI Nikuman are actually the Japanese version of a Chinese baozi.)
We’ve successfully searched out passable Japanese ramen and authentic German schnitzel but nikuman remain unobtainable.
Overwhelmed by the nikuman craving my daughter and I finally took control of the situation and committed to making them ourselves. Spoiler- we were pleasantly surprised and it was easier than I expected!
Like so many things, once we actually set to doing it I wondered why I’d waited so long. A year ago I solved the mystery of nikuman’s unique texture. The soft springy dumpling is steamed creating a sleek outside but the real magic is that the dough includes yeast and baking powder. The only ingredient not in my pantry was oyster sauce which I bought months ago but the procrastination monster kept me searching instead of making them.
I don’t have a bamboo steamer so we used my underused electric vegetable steamer. Nikumon cook for about 12 minutes and my little steamer only fits one at a time so steaming took a while and it’s essential to let the dough rest so from start to finish was a three hour adventure but well worth it! (They were so delicious that my daughter made them again the next day with a different filling and slightly smaller size fitting two at a time in the steamer so her second adventure was much shorter.)
My take away? Nikumon are as wonderful as I remember and I should have taken action sooner.
