Manapua

Hey Jude's Note:

Manapua are a wonderful snack food popular in Hawaii. I found this recipe in a travel magazine a few years ago. You can substitute Chinese BBQ pork (char siu) for the sausage if you'd like.

• Total Time: 3 hrs 45 mins
• Prep Time: 3 hrs 30 mins
• Cook Time: 15 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 12

Dough

• 2 cups lukewarm water
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 packages dry yeast (not rapid yeast)
• 8 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 7 cups flour

Filling

• 4 cups Chinese sausage , diced
• ¼ teaspoon garlic , finely minced
• 1 cup bean sprouts
• ½ cup carrot , coarsely shredded
• 1 green onion , chopped
• ½ shiitake mushroom , sliced
• 2 teaspoons sherry wine
• ½ tablespoon soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 ½ tablespoons sugar

Directions:

1. Dough: Mix dry ingredients together (including yeast).
2. Add oil and water and mix well.
3. Knead dough until smooth (about 10 minutes).
4. Place in a large bowl; cover with a clean damp cloth and leave in a warm place to rise for about 2 hours.
5. Filling: Mix together sherry, oyster sauce, soy sauce, water, sugar and cornstarch until free of lumps.
6. Heat 1 T oil in a wok or pan over medium heat, add sausage and saute for 1 minute.
7. Add vegetables and cook until crisp tender.
8. Add liquid mixture and cook until thickened slightly.
9. Cool before using.
10. Divide manapua dough into 24 balls.
11. Slightly flatten each ball, then roll out to 4-inch disks, leaving the center of the circle twice as thick as the sides.
12. Place 1 T of filling in the center of the dough.
13. Gather up the sides around the filling and twist dough to seal.
14. Place with twisted side down on a 2-inch square piece of wax paper.
15. Put buns 2 inches apart in a steamer and allow to rise for another hour.
16. Steam for 15 minutes.
17. If you prefer to bake the manapua, preheat oven to 350°.
18. Set the buns 2 inches apart on a baking sheet.
19. Brush with a mixture of 1 beaten egg, water and 1/4 tsp sugar.
20. Bake 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

Reviews

[mianbao]

These are very good. I made one recipe of the dough, as written, and one half recipe of the filling. I filled the second half with a ground pork and egg filling. This is a project, but worth it. It took me some practice to get the dumplings risen to the right point and steamed through, as mine were smaller. I weighed out the dough and got 38 45-gram pieces of dough. The dough needed about 1/2 cup more flour, but was very easy to handle, and didn't taste too sweet even with the specified amount of sugar. I didn't change the ingredients of the filling either, except for increasing the garlic and shiitake slightly. Delicious. I hope to have some left to freeze for later eating. Thank you for the recipe.

[~mimello2002~]

I used the recipe for the dough and for the filling I made char siu (chinese bbq), using pork shoulder and char siu mix I got from the store, the NOH brand...I was born and raised in Hawaii and this reminded me so much of home...I'm on the east coast now so I can't just get manapua when I want...the dough was awesome! I baked it, but I'm going to steam it next time...my husband and my kids loved it...thanks so much for sharing the recipe it's really nice to get to share a piece of my childhood with my children.

[Sin City Chef]

I chose this recipe for a birthday luau I'm helping to plan and decided to test it out tonight and it was awesome! In the interest of saving time, I bought bbq shredded beef for the filling. I quartered the recipe for the dough and added some honey to it as well as to the egg wash for extra sweetness (I baked them). They came out great, but next time I wont roll out the disks so thin. The dough is so good I want to taste more of it! YUM1 Thanks for the recipe. :)