Home-style Chinese meat pies

Your ingredients

Get ready: Kitchen scales, chopping board, mixing bowls, measuring spoons and a suitable saucepan or frying pan.

• 🍚Dough: 300 g plain flour
• 💧Dough: 120 ml hot water and 45 ml cool water
• 🥣Dough: 2 tbsp neutral oil, plus extra for coating
• 🥩Filling: 300 g pork mince
• 🥬Filling: 6 spring onions, finely chopped
• 🥣Filling: 1 tbsp minced ginger
• 🥣Filling: 1 tbsp light soy sauce and 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 🥜Filling: 1 tsp sesame oil
• 🥬Filling: ¼ tsp ground Sichuan pepper or five-spice
• 🥬Filling: ¼ tsp white pepper
• 💧Filling: 60 ml water or unsalted stock
• 🥣Neutral oil for frying

Let’s make it

1. Mix and rest

   Stir hot water into the flour with a spoon, then add cool water and dough oil. Knead once safe to touch. Cover for 20 minutes, knead smooth, divide into eight oiled balls and rest covered for another 10 minutes.

2. Beat the filling

   Stir all filling ingredients together until the liquid is absorbed and the mixture is sticky. Refrigerate while the dough rests.

3. Fill and seal

   Flatten each dough ball into a disc with slightly thinner edges. Put an eighth of the filling in the centre. Bring the edges up and pleat or pinch tightly together, keeping filling away from the seam. Flatten gently with a spatula to about 2 cm thick.

4. Cook gently

   Heat a shallow film of oil in a heavy frying pan. Fry pies over low to medium-low heat until golden underneath, turn and cover. Continue cooking and turning as needed, about 15–20 minutes per batch, until the filling reaches 75°C for 30 seconds. If browning too quickly, lower the heat.

5. Rest briefly

   Allow a minute before biting into the hot filling. The first pie is a useful practice run: adjust the heat for the rest.