If you’ve ever tucked into
a bao, those small, pillowy steamed buns filled with such things as braised
pork belly, fried chicken or perhaps tempura sweet potato, you owe something to
Erchen Chang, her husband Shing Tat Chung and sister-in-law Wai Ting Chung.
Together, they first bought the moreish buns to the UK in 2012 with a street
food pop-up-turned bao empire that now has a weekend stall at Netil Market and three
crowd-forming restaurants in Soho, Fitzrovia and Borough.

Here, we meet Erchen at BAO’s latest opening in Borough market to talk about the food of her childhood in Taiwan, why it took her six months to perfect her bao bun, the importance of design and what she cooks at home, plus get her recipe for prawn shia song rice with soy cured egg.

Erchen: “Why is food so
important to me? I think I grew up in an environment in which food was just
naturally important; my family love eating, and all social events are based on
communal meals. It’s hard to put a finger on it because I literally live and
breathe food, every day. It’s just something that I enjoy so much.

“In Taiwan, food is
embedded deep in the culture. Everything, everywhere you go is about food. If
you’re gathering with friends, it’s always for food first. As a tourist, you
can eat a lot of authentic Taiwanese food in restaurants and on the street –
the good cooking doesn’t just happen in people’s homes as there’s a big eating
out culture.

“When I was growing up, it
wasn’t just dinner that was important, we would spend time eating breakfast
together as a family too. But, back then, I didn’t think about it too much
because it was so ingrained.

“I started thinking about
food more when I moved to the UK. I came to study in England when I was 14, and
all of a sudden I was faced with just one plate of food. Back home I was so
spoilt to have my grandma cook ten dishes for dinner: always a soup, always a
plate of rice, plenty of vegetables, plenty of meat.

“But I didn’t learn to
cook from her. My grandma’s kitchen is her one woman show, and you don’t
disturb her. It’s amazing to watch her whip out ten dishes easily, no sweat,
but you don’t want to get in the way of that!

“Now, when I think about her
cooking, it’s not that difficult when you break it down: she always has a cold
dish, always a broth slow cooking at the back, always a fried fish, which is
done last minute when everyone is sitting down, and is the centrepiece of the
meal. So, there’s a rhythm to it, and I love it, but if you haven’t been
watching, you’d think, ‘Oh my god how the hell did you come up with all these
things’.

“So the shift came when I
moved here, when I started appreciating what I had before. I started remaking
dishes or asking my family how to do certain things, but it wasn’t until I was
studying at the Slade School of Fine Art that I started cooking more because
there was, I guess, more parties and I wanted people to come over to my flat
for big feasts.

“My partner Shing and I
would cook a lot at home. We would just try and recreate things we had seen,
but not necessarily Taiwanese. When there is a dish that we really want to
crack, we can spend half a year doing the same thing, over and over again.

“For example, the bun took
us half a year to perfect, without us even knowing we were going to open a
restaurant – we were just so interested in making it. When we went back to
Taiwan we would eat everywhere and come back with ideas.

“In Taiwan the bun isn’t a soft as ours, it has a bit more of a chew. We had an amazing bun north of Taipei, and that’s where we thought, ‘Oh my god, this is so good.’ We decided to try our best to recreate it at home.

“At that time, we had just
graduated. We both studied Fine Art, Shing also did design afterwards,
and Ting, his sister and our business partner, also comes from a creative
background so we just thought you know, let’s just make something and see how
it goes. We started doing popups and that’s how we began.

“With the menu, we always
start by looking at a dish in its most authentic form. That’s to begin with,
when we’re doing research. We always start with something that already exists
in Taiwan or Asia, but we tend not to really stick with the authentic version
because to us, we want to recreate an experience but with our take on it.

“So, it’s not so important to be 100% authentic, and I think that’s what makes BAO what it is – we’re a world on our own. I am representing Taiwan and I take a lot of cultural references from there, but I’m not necessarily always trying to directly recreate a dish. I think the most authentic is probably our classic bun, which is where our whole journey started – we have stuck to the authenticity there, but we kind of go wild with the rest.

“Design has always been the core for all three of us, in terms of creating experiences. Why is design important? I’ve been to several viewings with The Modern House, all to beautiful homes – including Coningham Mews and The Coach House – where you can really imagine living in a space in which people have tried and tested the design, found what works and made it comfortable. It’s about what a space can add to an experience, from living to eating.

“Our restaurants are all inspired by different things in Asia that we like or want to know more about. For Borough, we have studied late-night grill joints in Tokyo such as yakitori places or izakaya restaurants where people drink shochu and soda water and have a good time.

“We study our references a
lot, and not just in terms of design but how humans interact with the space and
how that can facilitate experiences. Of course, aesthetics help a lot – you
need to have it to start everything off – but it’s what happens afterwards that
makes a space interesting. We’re really interested in how all the details
combine and what creates an atmosphere.

“One thing you might notice is that our restaurants are very well catered to single dinners, even though there’s a lot of groups that come. In Soho I remember a lot of the comments were about how easy it is for single diners to go in, sit and eat. You don’t feel uncomfortable because everyone is so close to each other. Our logo is a man-eating by himself, and it’s all about how, in this metropolitan world, being alone is ok.

“On my days off I would
say half the time I cook, half the time we go out. I do like staying at home.
We live in Soho at the moment because it’s convenient for work but we’re moving
out soon to a house we’re renovating near Stratford.

“I would say I cook at
home two to three times a week. I’m not as adventurous now, and I seek more
comfort food if I’m honest. I probably have four to five tastings a week, so
all I do is think about food, taste and tweak. When it comes to home, I just
want a slow-cooked broth or a tomato sauce pasta with a really good cheese and
tomatoes. I do the adventurous stuff here.

“I’ve come to see that
with English food, or general European food, there’s actually so much going
into it, even though it comes out as appearing more simple perhaps. I think
it’s equally impressive but just different in its way of preparation.

“On Sundays we make roasts, and stews quite a bit, which I love. Steak and chips sometimes. If we’re going to make Chinese food it will be a variety of things, like tomato and egg, fried rice, sometimes broth noodles, or duck vermicelli.

“We used to entertain a lot
at home but our flat is really small now, so we don’t so much anymore. When we
lived in south London we had friends over for Chinese New Year, or my birthday
and we would cook a lot. I remember a big feast we made for Chinese New Year
once, with lobster, glutinous rice, steamed baskets, baos, and loads of crazy
stuff – it was fun. But we’ve been so busy too, and we don’t have the time
anymore!

“I hope people who come to
eat at our restaurants feel like they have been transported to another place,
but what I hope most is that they have a really amazing time and enjoy
themselves. I hope they come into a space that feels comfortable and have a really
good lunch ­or dinner – I think that’s really important.”

Erchen’s recipe for prawn shia song rice with soy cured egg
Prawn shia song is a classic Taiwanese dish that is often served in weddings and banquets as an appetiser. The chopped prawn is seasoned with garlic, fermented chilli and white pepper, and by combining cornflour and egg white it creates a juicy, fluffy prawn which is spooned over lettuce cups that provide a refreshing crunch. When I am craving something comforting and heart-warming, I make prawn shia song and have it over rice and a soy cured egg.

To prepare this dish, you can begin by preparing the soy cured egg yolk
and rice dressing.

Soy cured egg yolk
200ml soy sauce

200ml mirin

2 egg yolks

To cure your egg yolks, first begin by preparing your soy cure mix by
simply combining the soy and mirin together. You will need one egg yolk per
serving, so separate out six egg yolks, in case any break. Drop they yolks
carefully into the soy cure and let them sit for about 15 minutes.

If it’s more than half an hour the egg will be over cured and risk being
too firm. The result you are after is a runny egg yolk which has intensified in
flavour with the soy and mirin. Splash the soy cure mix over the yolk once or
twice throughout the marinating period.

Rice dressing
30g soy sauce

25g caster sugar

40g mushroom oyster sauce

15ml sesame oil

A pinch of five spice

15ml water

75ml chicken stock (or water)

10ml Ching Kiang vinegar (black vinegar)

Prepare the rice dressing ahead of time. The dressing is especially
tasty if you have some chicken stock handy. Don’t worry if you don’t, you can
always substitute it with water. As the prawn is the star of the dish, the
dressing is there to make sure that as you dig deeper into the bowl it is still
full of flavour.

You can now begin cooking the rice. I would highly recommend using a
Taiwanese rice grain, Chi Shang. This particular rice grain is a short grain
rice, which has a great bite and is very plump. A good substitute would be a
sushi rice.

Rice
300g Chi Shang Rice

300ml filtered water

Wash the rice three times and soak in filtered water for 30 minutes. Bring
300ml of water to boil in a saucepan. Drain the rice and put it into the boiling
water. The temperature of the water will drop but when the water has returned
to boil, turn the heat down to low and place the lid on. Cook for 18 minutes.

Once cooked, open the lid and give it a good mix, making sure the rice
at the bottom is scraped up. Put the lid back on again, turn off the heat and
let it sit for about 10 minutes before serving, to let the moisture from the
steam lock into the rice to make it more plump.

Prawn shia song mix
500g peeled and cubed prawns

45g peeled and finely diced carrots

45g finely diced celery

45g finely diced water chestnuts

15g minced garlic

2 tsp caster sugar

1 tsp salt

15g corn flour

70g egg white

A pinch of ground white pepper

1/2 tsp fermented chilli

2l vegetable oil

Whilst the rice is cooking, prepare the prawn mix by peeling and
de-veining the prawns. Cut them to around 1cm cube size and set aside in a
large mixing bowl. Prepare the vegetable mix by finely dicing the carrot,
celery, water chestnuts and minced garlic and put all the veg straight into the
mixing bowl.

Put the salt, sugar, white pepper, corn starch and egg white all into
the mixture and use your hand to combine them properly, making especially sure
that the salt and sugar is fully incorporated. Let it sit for 15 minutes to let
the seasoning and flavours meld together.

Find a wok, or the deepest non-stick frying pan you can find. Fill the
pan so the oil is about 8-10cm deep. Heat it up to 130C.

Whilst the oil is still reaching the temperature, set up your frying
station. Prepare a ladle, a slotted spoon and a sieve over a large wide bowl.
Once the oil is heated to 130C, put two ladles of prawn mix into the oil and
stir with the slotted spoon. A pasta spider is even better as it will allow you
to keep things moving and separate the prawn mix to ensure it cooks evenly.

Cook the prawns for about two-three minutes, until the
colour of the prawn turns opaque pink. Drain the cooked prawns by putting them
into a sieve over a bowl. Let the oil drain properly. Be very careful at this
stage as the oil is very hot. The cooking of the prawn will take a few goes.
Once all the prawns are cooked, mix through the fermented chilli.

To Serve
Taiwanese Chi Shang Rice or short grain rice

Prawn shia song mix

Soy cured egg

Rice dressing

Chilli oil

Fine chilli flakes

Find a large rice bowl, fill two thirds with steaming rice, drizzle the
dressing over the rice and then pile the cooked prawn mix to cover the surface
of the rice. The more the merrier. Use a slotted spoon to take out the cured
yolk and place in the middle of the prawn shia song. Drizzle chilli oil over
the prawn mix and sprinkle the fine chilli flakes all over.

Side Note
I always find chilli oil is one of the best ingredients in the pantry. The method again is very simple and keeps for a long time.

400g Chinese dried red chilli

1l vegetable oil

Toast the dried red chilli in a dry frying pan until it takes on a dark
crimson shade. Let it cool and blitz to a powder.

Heat up the oil with the toasted chilli powder. It will take about 25-30
minutes for the infusion. When you get a smoky aroma and the colour of the
chilli turns dark, take off the heat and let it cool down completely.

Pass the oil through a sieve and the result should be a bright red smoky
chilli oil. Store in a sterilised glass jar. You can always turn the waste
oil from cooking the prawns into chilli oil.