Photo: Mizu basyo · CC BY-SA 3.0
Buuz (Steamed Mutton Dumplings)
Mongolia's steamed dumpling, filled with nothing but mutton and onion. No vegetables and plenty of fat, so a pocket of broth collects inside as it steams — which is why the first bite needs care. Families make them by the hundred for Tsagaan Sar, the lunar new year.
Ingredients
- For the dough
- Plain flour · Some bread flour makes it chewier400 g
- Water · Lukewarm200 ml
- Salt1 tsp
- For the filling
- Minced mutton · At least 20% fat; beef also works500 g
- Mutton or beef fat · Finely chopped — this is where the broth comes from80 g
- Onion · Very finely chopped1 medium
- Garlic · Minced4 cloves
- Salt1.5 tsp
- Black pepper · Coarsely ground1 tsp
- Ground cumin · Optional; used in the west of the country0.5 tsp
- Water or stock · To loosen the filling60 ml
- To serve
- Oil · For greasing the steamer
- Pickles · Alongside, to cut the richness
Steps
- ⏲ 15 min
Mix salt into the flour and add the lukewarm water gradually to a stiff dough. It should be firm enough not to stick to your hands — slack dough tears in the steamer.
- ⏲ 30 min
Cover the dough and rest it at least 30 minutes. Kneading and resting are different jobs: resting relaxes the gluten so the dough stops springing back as you roll.
- ⏲ 10 min
Mix the mince with the chopped fat, onion, garlic, salt, pepper and cumin, adding the water a little at a time and stirring in one direction. Add no other vegetables — cabbage or chives turn it into a different country's dumpling.
- ⏲ 25 min
Roll the dough into a rope, cut chestnut-sized pieces and roll each into an 8–9cm round, thicker in the centre and thin at the edge. A thin centre lets the broth leak out.
- ⏲ 40 min
Put a heaped spoon of filling on a wrapper and pleat the edge round in one direction, closing it to leave a small hole at the top. Fully closed is fine, but the small opening is the common Mongolian shape.
- ⏲ 3 min
Grease the steamer base and racks. Ungreased, the dough sticks and tears open, and all the broth is lost.
- ⏲ 20 min
Arrange the buuz without touching and steam over rolling steam for 15–20 minutes. They are done when the dough turns translucent and puffs slightly.
- ⏲ 2 min
Serve at once. Bite a small hole in the side and drink the broth first — bite straight in and the hot juice sprays. Same trick as xiaolongbao.
Tips & Variations
Variations
- Khuushuur: the same filling in a larger flat parcel, shallow-fried instead of steamed. The food of the Naadam festival, and buuz's sibling.
- Bansh: made much smaller and dropped into soup, or even into milk tea. Same dough, same filling, miniaturised.
- With beef: if mutton is too strong for you, use minced beef — but add extra fat separately or there will be no broth.
- A little potato: city kitchens sometimes stretch the filling with a little diced potato. Not the traditional version.
- Boiled rather than steamed: boiling washes the juices out, so if you boil them, make it a soup dish outright.
- The relatives: Mandu, Gyoza, Xiaolongbao and Pierogi are all the same family. What sets buuz apart is that no vegetables go in the filling, and the dough is thick.
Tips
- Do not trim the fat. The broth inside is not gelatin or stock — it is rendered fat. Lean mince gives you dry dumplings and no juice. If the mince is lean, add finely chopped fat separately.
- No vegetables. Cabbage, chives or leeks release water, thin the juices, and above all stop it being buuz. Onion and garlic is the whole list.
- Stiff dough, and rest it. Slack dough splits while steaming, and do not skip the 30 minutes — the reason is in Dough and gluten.
- Roll the centre thicker. Blowouts happen at the base, not at the pleats. A thin centre cannot hold the weight of the broth.
- Grease the steamer. A stuck buuz tears its bottom out as you lift it and loses everything inside.
- Do not crowd them. Touching buuz fuse into one. Leave a finger's width between them.
- Freezing is the normal way to keep them. Freeze them spread apart, bag them, and steam them straight from frozen (add five minutes). Thawed, the wrappers go wet and stick — see Freezing and thawing.
- At Tsagaan Sar families fold hundreds, sometimes a thousand, and steam a batch each time guests arrive. Freezing is not a shortcut here; it is how the dish is operated.
The basics behind this dish
- Freezing and Thawing Without Wrecking the TextureTexture damage from freezing comes down to ice crystal size. Freeze fast, exclude air, thaw in the fridge, and most of the problem disappears.
- Wrapping and Sealing: Why Dumplings BurstA dumpling bursts because of water in the filling, almost every time. How to deal with the filling first, when to seal with water and when with egg, why the pleats are structural, and how the cooking method decides the thickness of the wrapper.
- Steaming: Water Level, Condensation, and StackingSteam never exceeds 100°C and still cooks faster than boiling water. The reason is latent heat; the commonest failure is the drip off the lid; and stacking does not work the way people think.
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