The best Sunday-morning baozi moment goes like this: you lift the steamer lid and the hot steam fogs up your whole face.
This HUANGYIFU steamer pairs a carbonised-bamboo body with a reinforced stainless steel rim: carbonised bamboo doesn't soak up damp or turn mouldy easily, so it keeps well even in a rainy British flatshare kitchen, and the steel band holds the frame firm so it won't fall apart after years of use.
The cleverest part is the size — it sits exactly on the rim of the 1.8L Supor Little Green Pot (or Little Pink Pot). Rice or soup simmers below while two baozi steam and a bowl of leftovers reheats above: one hob spot doing two jobs, which is precisely the kind of space-saving trick a dorm kitchen is short of.
Quick Recipes
Re-steamed baozi and mantou: frozen buns from the Chinese supermarket go in without defrosting — ten minutes or so once the steam gets going, and the skins turn soft with the filling piping hot.
Breakfast steamed egg custard: whisk eggs with warm water and steam on top while the Little Green Pot cooks congee below — a whole breakfast out of one hob spot.
Tastes of Home
Cantonese har gow, siu mai, black-bean spare ribs and lo mai gai (sticky rice chicken); Jiangnan xiaolongbao; northeastern niandoubao (sticky bean buns) and sauerkraut dumplings; Sichuan-Chongqing fenzhengrou (steamed rice-flour pork); Hunan Liuyang steamed dishes — all those basket-by-basket yum cha memories, laid out on top of the Little Green Pot.
