Bawan is the quintessential Taiwanese street snack. Steamed or fried, it literally means “meat ball” and is a dumpling of sorts filled with meat, bamboo shoots, and mushrooms. The semi-translucent chewy outside is made with rice flour and sweet potato flour, giving it this unique texture that’s super fun to eat.
Taiwanese-style Bawan
This recipe is adapted from Homestyle Cooking of Taiwan by members of NATWA
For a printer-friendly version of the recipe please click here.
Ingredients:
Outer Covering
8 T long grain rice flour (see picture at right)
12 T sweet potato flour
5 2/3 cups water
1 lb sweet potato flour
Filling
2 T vegetable oil
2 bunches of scallions, chopped
11 dried black mushrooms
1 lb pork tenderloin, sliced (or ground pork)
1 can (8 oz) bamboo shoots (sliced)
1 lb shrimp (about 22)
3 T soy sauce
1 T sugar
1 T salt
1 tsp pepper
Sauce (sweet rice paste)
1 cup long grain rice flour
3 cups waster
1/2 cup sugar
Garnishes
Cilantro, chopped
Soy sauce
optional: sweet chili sauce (see picture at right)
Precooking preparations:
1. If you purchased fresh shrimp, devein the shrimp, remove heads and tails. I bought one pound of raw frozen shrimp, so I just defrosted it and removed the tails.
2. Soak dried mushrooms in hot water until soft (about 10 minutes), and cut each one in half
Making the Covering
1. In a large pot, combine the long grain rice flour, 12 T of sweet potato flour, and water.
2. Cook at high heat, stirring CONTINUALLY!
3. After it has come to a boil, remove from heat and let cool.
4. Add 1 lb of sweet potato flour and mix thoroughly. Set aside.
Making the filling
1. Heat wok at high heat and add the vegetable oil.
2. Stir fry the scallions and the mushrooms briefly for about a minute.
3. Add the remaining ingredients and stir fry until the meat appears done (shrimp turns pink, pork is opaque)
4. Add flavoring agents (soy sauce, sugar, salt, and pepper). Mix thoroughly
From top left, left to right: 1. Chopped scallions & mushroom 2. Saute scallions & mushrooms first in hot wok! 3. Add meat and bamboo 4. First step in making the bawans – put on a cabbage or napa leaf!
Constructing the Bawan
You have 22 pieces of shrimp, 22 mushroom halves. This is no accident. You will fill each dough piece with one piece of shrimp, one mushroom, and a little bit of bamboo and pork. Warning, this stuff is really sticky! It sort of has the consistency of gooey paste. I find it’s a bit easier to work with if you hold the bawan on top of a cabbage leaf (see pictures above). It’s easier to handle the gooey paste if you wet your fingers constantly. I ended up putting a plate full of water nearby just so I could constantly wet my fingers.
From top left, left to right: 1. Second step in making bawans – add filling! 2. Third step – cover with dough 3. White, gloppy paste-like bawan covering 4. Bawans resting, not yet steamed
1. Put a circular dollop of dough onto a leaf. Using wet fingers, push in the middle a bit for the filling.
2. Add the filling (1 shrimp, 1/2 mushroom, etc)
3. Put another smaller dollop of dough on top
4. Using wet fingers, try to pinch the edges together to form a ball
5. Set aside
Cooking the Bawans
Steam bawans in a 2-tiered steamer. Ideally, you would have a multi-layer Chinese bamboo steamer. However, if you don’t, a normal steamer works fine too. I just lined the steamer with cabbage leaves and placed the bawans on top.
Steam for about 10 minutes.
Bawans about to be steamed . . . nooooo!!!! Save us!
Making the Sweet Rice Paste Sauce
1. combine long grain rice flour, water, and sugar in a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil (remember to stir!) and then remove from heat.
Garnishing the Bawans
For each bawan, add a bit of soy sauce (about 1 tsp), cover with some sweet white paste sauce, and garnish with cilantro. If you have access to sweet chile sauce, you can use that as well.
Enjoy!
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i love bawan! i can’t believe you made these from scratch..i’m in awe haha. i’ve only had these a few times in my life and they are such a treat. love it with the sweet chili sauce
I’ve never heard of sweet potato flour. I’ll have to look more into it!
Seems like a lot of work to make on an occasional basis at home but I can tell the end result is totally worth it. Really enjoying these recent Taiwanese posts! Thanks so much!
cooooooooool! wow, I’ve never seen anything like this! thanx for showing me a new recipe! kickass!
I love Bawan and what a beautiful and enticing photo of it! I asked my aunt to teach me how to make it and she does it in bowls.
So cool! I’ve never seen these before. Plan tomorrow: hunt down some bawan in Taipei =)
wow! you made your own? that’s awesome.. i’ve seen some that are more translucent.. maybe that’s more corn starch? the sauce totally makes it!
Not good to be reading food blogs while hungry. I stumbled across this post, and am now drooling…lovely pic!
I love ba-wan, and I have been looking everywhere for a recipe. Thank you! The pictures are lovely, too.
Someone recommended your site and this bawan recipe is what I have been looking for. I am from Taiwan and my wife is Caucasian. I did not know how to describe this dish to her. I guess Taiwanese Meatball will have to do. There is another dish that is a street vendor dish. It is a sweet riceball, about size of mango but they put stuffing inside, but it is eaten like a dessert.
This is my favorite food to eat when we visit family in Taiwan. I have not been able to find an authentic tasting Taiwanese meatball in any restaurants here-they seem to be gamey tasting. Perhaps they were frozen and not freshly made. I am so happy to find this recipe. Thank you!
hi can you pls help me to find the reciepe of chicken in taiwan. they call it chipay. in the street of taiwan you can find that fried chicken. thanks and i always read your blog and i learned a lot of things her.. have a goo.
d day and god bless you
Hi lea,
Unfortunately I have never made the particular fried chicken you are talking about. I think the spice mix that they use is available in Taiwan, but I can’t remember the name of it!
Best of luck, and sorry I couldn’t help more!
Jen
I think what you’re talking about is ” 雞排”, here I found a recipe:
http://mickyrecipes.blogspot.tw/2008/10/taiwanese-fried-chicken-secrets.html
Good pictures for showing the process. The final arrangement looks quite colorful.
hi! do you know how one might make their bawan more soft and..squish-y like? I find that this recipe and most bawan I get in the US tend to be much more firm and chewy, with a drier texture, while the ones I got on the streets of Pintung and Kaohsiung were always so soft that they were almost gel-like! (Those would also be pork only–surprisingly, I’ve never had a bawan with anything other than that!) Would you just steam it less, or do you think there is a difference in the ingredients?
Good question. I’ve only had it in Kaohsiung once. I would say adding more potato starch and less rice flour would make it more gelatinous. I’m not really sure, though. I just know that there was one time when I ran out of potato starch and ended up using more rice flour. The final product was less translucent and less soft and squishy!
Hi Jennifer,
What is the difference between sweet potato starch and sweet potato flour?
I can’t wait to try the recipe.