Xiaolongbao

Steamed dumplings with soup inside them, which gets there as a cold jelly cut into cubes and folded through the filling.

Pork. Not vegetarian — contains pork.

Ingredients

For the jellied stock

• 400 g pork skin, scraped clean of fat
• 1 litre water
• 4 slices ginger
• 2 spring onions
• 30 ml Shaoxing wine

For the filling

• 400 g coarsely minced pork, about 20 per cent fat
• 20 g ginger, grated to a paste
• 30 ml light soy sauce
• 10 ml sesame oil
• 5 g sugar
• 4 g salt

For the wrappers

• 300 g plain flour
• 160 ml just-boiled water
• flour for dusting

Method

1. THE SOUP GOES IN COLD AND SOLID. There is no way to put liquid into a raw dumpling and close it. The stock is set to a firm jelly, chopped into cubes and folded through the mince, and it melts in the steamer. Every other difficulty here follows from that one idea.
2. Pork skin blanched 5 minutes from cold water, drained, and any remaining fat scraped off the underside with a knife. Fat left on gives a greasy stock that sets cloudy.
3. Skin, fresh water, ginger, spring onion and wine brought to a bare simmer and held there 3 hours. It should reduce by about half and look syrupy on a cold spoon.
4. Strained, the solids discarded, and chilled overnight. IT MUST SET HARD ENOUGH TO CUT INTO CUBES AND HOLD THEM. If it only sets to a wobble, reduce it further and chill again -- a soft jelly bleeds into the filling and the dumplings weep before they reach the steamer.
5. The set jelly chopped into 5 mm cubes.
6. Filling: mince, ginger, soy, sesame oil, sugar and salt stirred hard in ONE DIRECTION for 3 minutes until it turns tacky and clings to the spoon. Then the jelly cubes folded through gently, and chilled 30 minutes.
7. Wrappers: just-boiled water into the flour, stirred with chopsticks, kneaded 8 minutes to a firm smooth dough and rested 30 minutes. Hot water gives a dough that stays soft when steamed and does not spring back while you pleat.
8. Rolled into a rope, cut into 24, each rolled to about 8 cm across and THIN AT THE EDGE, THICKER IN THE MIDDLE. An evenly thin wrapper tears at the base, which is exactly where the weight of the soup ends up.
9. A tablespoon of filling in the centre. Pleated around the rim, lifting and folding and turning as you go, and pinched firmly closed at the top. A loose crown is where it bursts.
10. Onto squares of paper in the basket, spaced apart.
11. Steamed over hard-boiling water 8 minutes, then served at once -- left standing in the basket the bases soften and stick.
12. Eaten by lifting one into a spoon, biting the side, drinking the soup and then eating the rest. Straight into the mouth and the soup is hot enough to scald.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under China · All recipes