Buuz

Ingredients

Dough

• 600 gplain flour
• 1 tspsalt
• about 300 ml warm water

Filling

• 800 gmutton or fatty lamb shoulder, hand-chopped or coarsely minced
• 150 gmutton fat or tail fat, chopped small
• 1large onion (200 g), chopped very fine, or 6 garlic cloves crushed
• 2 tspsalt
• 1 tspfreshly ground black pepper
• ½ tspground caraway (optional, common in the countryside)
• 120 mlcold water or light broth

To serve

• Suutei tsai (salty milk tea)
• Pickled vegetables or a dish of chilli sauce, in the towns

Directions

1. Mix the flour, salt and warm water into a firm, fairly stiff dough. Knead it hard for 10 minutes until smooth, then wrap and rest 30 minutes. Buuz dough is deliberately tight, so it holds the juices without tearing.
2. Chop the meat by hand with a heavy knife if you can, into pieces the size of a grain of rice, and chop the fat separately. Hand-chopped meat gives a loose, juicy filling; machine mince packs into a dense ball.
3. Mix the meat, fat, onion, salt, pepper and caraway, then beat in the cold water a little at a time, working it in one direction for a couple of minutes until the mixture is sticky and holds together. The water becomes the broth inside the dumpling.
4. Chill the filling 20 minutes so the fat firms and is easier to handle.
5. Roll the dough into two long ropes and cut into 40 pieces. Roll each into a disc about 8 cm across, thicker in the centre than at the rim; the thick middle stops the base bursting under the weight of the filling.
6. Hold a disc in the palm, place a heaped teaspoon of filling in the middle, and pleat the edge with the thumb and forefinger, turning the dumpling as you go, gathering 15 to 25 small folds and leaving a small opening at the top. That open crown is the mark of a buuz and is what distinguishes it from a sealed bansh.
7. Oil the steamer tiers or lay down carrot slices, and arrange the buuz with a finger’s width between them so they do not stick together.
8. Steam over a hard rolling boil for 15–18 minutes. They are done when the dough turns glossy and slightly translucent, no longer floury white, and the filling is firm.
9. Rest 1 minute off the heat, then serve at once, piled on a plate, with hot suutei tsai.
10. Eat them by hand: bite a small hole in the side first and drink the broth, then eat the rest. Diving in with a full bite scalds the mouth and wastes the best part.

Technique

• Buuz are the fixed food of Tsagaan Sar, the Lunar New Year, when families make hundreds at a time in the days beforehand, freeze them raw outside in the cold, and steam them in batches as guests arrive through the holiday.
• The seasoning is deliberately minimal: mutton, fat, onion or garlic, salt and pepper. Mongolian cooking prizes the taste of the meat itself, and adding soy, ginger or herbs turns them into a different dumpling entirely.
• Fat is not optional. Lean mince gives a dry, tough buuz with no broth; the tail fat is what makes them juicy.
• Count the pleats. A well-made buuz is judged on the number and evenness of its folds, and the skill is a matter of household reputation.

Substitutions

• No mutton: beef with 20 percent added fat, or a mix of beef and lamb, is the common town version.
• No steamer: a metal colander over a pot with a tight lid works, provided the buuz do not touch the water.
• Freeze raw on a tray, then bag them; steam from frozen for 20–22 minutes without thawing.

Variations

• Khuushuur is the same filling in a flat sealed pastry, deep-fried, eaten in quantity at Naadam.
• Bansh are smaller, fully sealed and boiled, often dropped into milk tea to make bantan.
• Some families work a spoonful of grated potato or cabbage into the filling to stretch it.

History

Eaten by the hundred at Tsagaan Sar, when families fold and freeze thousands outdoors in the weeks before the lunar new year.

Frequently asked questions

What is Buuz?

Buuz is a main from Mongolia: steamed dumplings of minced mutton and onion, Lunar New Year essential. Eaten by the hundred at Tsagaan Sar, when families fold and freeze thousands outdoors in the weeks before the lunar new year.

How long does Buuz take to make?

Buuz takes 1 hr of preparation and 20 min of cooking. The recipe makes about 40 dumplings, 5–6 servings. It is rated medium to make.

What can I substitute in Buuz?

Yes, within limits. No mutton: beef with 20 percent added fat, or a mix of beef and lamb, is the common town version. No steamer: a metal colander over a pot with a tight lid works, provided the buuz do not touch the water. Freeze raw on a tray, then bag them; steam from frozen for 20–22 minutes without thawing.

What is the most important thing to get right in Buuz?

Hold a disc in the palm, place a heaped teaspoon of filling in the middle, and pleat the edge with the thumb and forefinger, turning the dumpling as you go, gathering 15 to 25 small folds and leaving a small opening at the top. That open crown is the mark of a buuz and is what distinguishes it from a sealed bansh.