Buuz

Mongolia's steamed mutton dumplings, pleated shut around a filling of fat, onion and nothing much else, eaten by the dozen at the lunar new year

Origin: Ulaanbaatar & the Mongolian Plateau

From the journey of Wheat.

Buuz are pleated, steamed, and deliberately plain. The filling is minced or hand-chopped mutton with a good deal of its own fat, onion or wild steppe garlic, salt, and often nothing else at all; there is no soy sauce, no ginger, no five spice. Mongolians will say that a buuz should taste of the sheep, and the seasoning is set at whatever level lets that happen. The fat is structural rather than incidental. A buuz filling wants to be visibly fatty, because as it steams the fat renders and collects in the base of the dumpling, so a properly made one holds a mouthful of hot juice under the pleats. That is the reward for the pleating and the reason they are eaten holding the dumpling upright and biting a small hole in the side first. They belong overwhelmingly to Tsagaan Sar, the lunar new year and the most important holiday of the Mongolian calendar. A household prepares them by the several hundred in the weeks beforehand, freezing them on trays outdoors, which in a Mongolian winter needs no equipment whatever; guests arriving through the holiday are fed them continuously, and the number a family can put out is a plain measure of its standing. Eating twenty at a sitting is not remarkable. The dumpling belongs to the family that runs from Chinese baozi through Central Asian manti to Tibetan and Nepali momo, and the Mongolian branch has three members distinguished by size and method: buuz steamed, bansh smaller and boiled in soup or tea, and khuushuur flattened and deep-fried, which is what fills the air at the Naadam festival in July.

Ingredients

Dough

  • 450 g plain flour
  • 0.75 tsp salt
  • 230 ml warm water, approximately

Filling

  • 600 g mutton or lamb, hand-chopped, with 150g of its fat
  • 2 onions, very finely chopped
  • 6 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1.5 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
  • 4 tbsp cold water or milk

To cook

  • 2 tbsp oil, for the steamer

Method

  1. Make a firm dough with the flour, salt, and water, knead it for eight minutes, and rest it covered for thirty.
  2. Chop the mutton and its fat by hand rather than mincing, which keeps the texture loose and lets the fat stay in visible pieces.
  3. Mix the meat, fat, onion, garlic, salt, and pepper, then work in the cold water a spoonful at a time until the filling is loose and slightly wet.
  4. Do not lean the filling out. The rendered fat is what fills the dumpling with juice, and a lean buuz is a dry one.
  5. Roll the dough into a rope, cut it into 25g pieces, and roll each into a disc about 9cm across, leaving the centre slightly thicker than the edge.
  6. Put a heaped tablespoon of filling in the middle. Hold the disc in your cupped palm and pleat the edge round with finger and thumb, turning as you go.
  7. Leave a small opening at the top rather than sealing it completely. This is the Mongolian way and it lets steam escape without splitting the sides.
  8. Oil the steamer tiers well. Buuz stick hard, and a torn dumpling loses its juice.
  9. Arrange them without touching and steam over a rolling boil for eighteen to twenty minutes.
  10. They are ready when the dough is glossy and translucent and the filling is firm. Underdone mutton fat is unpleasant, so give them the full time.
  11. Lift them out with a spoon rather than tongs, which tear the base.
  12. Eat immediately, holding the dumpling upright and biting a hole in the side to drink the juice before eating the rest. Salty milk tea is the standard accompaniment.

Notes

Hand-chop the meat and keep the fat: both are what separate a buuz from a generic dumpling, and lean minced lamb gives a dry, crumbly filling. Oil the steamer generously and lift the dumplings out with a spoon. The small opening at the top is deliberate and is not a failure to seal. They freeze extremely well raw on a floured tray and steam from frozen with five minutes added, which is how every Mongolian household actually handles them. Milk tea, salty and made with a little butter, is what they are drunk with, and it is a better match than it sounds.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

Mapping Culinary History

To explore — select an ingredient below.

Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
© 2026 The Gastrographer. All original research, narratives, and illustrations. All rights reserved.