Cooking Homemade Pork Buns and Egg Drop Soup

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I don’t recall eating pork buns at any restaurant before. At least not from what I recall. Even so, after seeing an Instagram Reel of TiffyCooks making Pork Buns, I had no choice but to cook some at home! They looked so good, and my taste buds could not leave the thought of having some savory and umami flavors in my mouth.

As I was planning to cook them, I knew that they had to go with one other dish. After putting a bit of thought into it, that dish happened to be Egg Drop Soup. I LOVE Egg Drop Soup! I often get it when I go to a Chinese buffet and sometimes when I order Chinese takeout. However, the cost for just one large container can be on the pricey side. My mother has told me that making Egg Drop Soup at home is simple and only takes a few ingredients. Needless to say, she didn’t lie.

Making the pork buns took a while, but it was all worth it! For me, there was no better New Year’s Eve dinner than buns and soup. But what exactly was that process like? I made Reels for both of those dishes, but again, 15 seconds can only tell so much.

For the pork buns, the first thing I did was make the dough. I blended in warm water, sugar, and yeast and let that mixture sit for five minutes. An important note is that the water should be around 115º, or the yeast will not be effective. Of course, follow the directions on the yeast package if possible. But after that, I put some flour and salt into a bowl before pouring in the yeast mixture. That turned into dough, and then I kneaded it for 5 minutes with my own hands.

While the dough was resting, I started the first step of preparing the egg drop soup, which was gathering the ingredients (chicken broth, sesame oil, salt, pepper, turmeric, powdered chicken bouillon). After that, I made a cornstarch and water mixture to pour into the boiling broth. And then came the main ingredient of the dish, which is obviously the eggs. After beating an egg and gently mixing it into the soup, that was it! That was all the soup took! Only thing is that I later added more cornstarch into the mix to make the soup thicker. This is how it looked before the extra cornstarch.

Before adding in extra cornstarch, I resumed the buns preparation by making the pork mixture. Unlike the original recipe, I ended up cooking the pork mixture in a pan. After some commotion with my mother, she insisted that I should cook the pork to make the buns finish cooking faster. Speaking of the buns, a weird thing is that we both thought the dough would rise, but it didn’t happen while the dough was resting. Maybe the dough wasn’t supposed to rise? That part left us confused.

But back to the pork. After cooking the mixture, it was time to make the buns. I made the dough into a long log and cut out around 15 sections or so. Then I turned each piece into a ball, rolled it out to a flat circle, inserted the mixture, and then closed it up to create a small pork bun! I started off with only cooking six of them to see how they would taste (and to also eat my dinner!). I poured some water into the pan until the water was around halfway up the buns. Then, I let them simmer for 15 minutes.

In the meantime, I added more cornstarch into the egg drop soup. Although the thing is that I removed around a cup of broth from the pan and mixed a tablespoon of cornstarch into it. Afterwards, I poured the new mixture back into the soup and stirred that in. And once the buns were ready, dinner was served!

Look at the photos of my buns and Egg Drop Soup! All I had to do was add the finishing touches, and there they were! Oh my gosh, they were so good! I was so proud of myself that night! And as a New Year’s Eve dinner, it was sublime!