Ah, sweet 2025. A new year, a fresh start to everyone’s life. Snow is falling, and yet people on the other side of the globe are preparing for a completely different celebration altogether. Rather than the typical Gregorian calendar we use, the people of China go by the Lunar cycle, and will be celebrating the year of the snake on January 29th, 2025.
Personally, I plan to celebrate by cooking the tastiest dish I could find, which turned out to be some fried pork buns from scratch. I found a delicious looking recipe on Red House Spice for Sheng Jian Bao, just the food I was looking for. I was at least half sure I could make them look as good as they do on the website. Again, I will be grading them on the usual scale of taste, texture, smell, work/difficulty, and overall.
Smell: 10/10
The smell of this dish was amazing throughout the entire cooking process. I was pleasantly surprised that Chinese Five-Spice had a sweet smell like the best applesauce ever.
Taste: 10/10
Tasting this dish was an absolute delight, a mix of sweet, salty and savory all in one. I got all positive reviews from the student test subjects that asked for one, and I’m really happy with how they turned out.
Texture: 10/10
The dough of the wrapper was well cooked and the filling was well-mixed, tender and pleasant on the tongue. I had no issues even from a few people that have bad experienced with textured foods.
Time/Effort: 7/10
It took longer than the prep time on the recipe said it would, roughly three hours to let everything get ready. The technique of closing the buns was a lot more difficult and took a few tries to master, but it isn’t the longest recipe I’ve made.
Overall: 9.25/10
I really recommend this recipe for people that want to spice up their cooking and enjoy a little Asian culture while at it! The recipe didn’t take too long to make and it tasted, smelled and felt absolutely wonderful on the tongue!
