hello hi everyone! Wesley here. Today we’re adding to our series dedicated to Chinese breakfast foods with a shot at a dim sum dish that I’ve been eating for pretty much my whole life, but never once considered trying to make, mostly because I always assumed they were a lot harder to make than they actually are. The Chinese minced pork meat pie, or Xian Bing is made up of a pretty simple flour and water based dough, then filled with a minced meat filling, flattened, and finally pan seared and steamed. 

For those keeping track, the concept of a meat pie is certainly not unique to Chinese food. You’ll come across the similarly assembled “minced pie” in England, the “empanada” in Latin America, the Jamaician Patty in Jamaica, the variations are truly endless. What has always stood out to me about the xian bing, however, is the pleated pattern that appears on the top of the pie as a result of the way that it is assembled, which you’ll notice looks a lot like a baozi or xiao lom bao, because they are all folded in the same method. So, we’re gonna take a look at all of that today, as well as a few of my favorite additions to a xian bing, including some celery heart and a bit of white pepper and chinese five spice for their aromatic qualities. Hope you try it.

It will be out on Friday September 3, 2021, so bookmark the recipe here, and be sure to subscribe and hit the bell on YouTube to get notified when it’s out!

Woo Can Cook is a series where we reproduce fun foods and recipes from my childhood. Some of them are authentically Chinese and/or pan-Asian, but a lot of them are odd Americanized versions that I inherited from my parents and grandparents while growing up in the Bay Area/California.

We're live streaming every Tues/Thurs at 6:30PM PST, with new recipes out every Friday!