Xiaolongbao

Cook it at home: Shanghai soup dumplings (xiaolongbao)

The soup is a pork aspic, chilled until firm and chopped into the filling; it melts when steamed. Thin wrappers with many pleats take practice; your first few will be lumpy and still delicious.

Pans and tools

• Bamboo steamer and wok or wide pot
• Small rolling pin
• Saucepan
• Dish for the aspic

You’ll need

• For the aspic: 1 lb (450 g) pork skin (or 1 lb pork trotters and 2 tsp unflavored gelatin), 1 scallion, 3 slices ginger, 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine, 4 cups (1 l) chicken stock
• For the filling: 12 oz (340 g) fatty ground pork
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce, 1 tsp dark soy sauce, 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine, 1 tsp sugar, 3/4 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp sesame oil, 1/4 tsp white pepper
• 1 tbsp finely grated ginger soaked in 3 tbsp water (use the water)
• For the dough: 2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp (135 ml) warm water, 1/4 tsp salt
• To serve: Chinkiang black vinegar and fine shreds of fresh ginger
• Napa cabbage leaves or parchment rounds for steaming

Steps

1. Make the aspic a day ahead: blanch the pork skin in boiling water 3 minutes, rinse, scrape off any fat, and cut into strips. Simmer with the scallion, ginger, wine and stock, covered, on low for 2 hours. Strain into a dish (add gelatin now if using trotters), cool and refrigerate overnight until firm.
2. Mix the pork with the soy sauces, wine, sugar, salt, sesame oil and pepper. Stir in the ginger water a spoon at a time, stirring hard in one direction until sticky.
3. Finely dice 1 1/2 cups (about 300 g) of the firm aspic and fold it into the pork. Chill 30 minutes.
4. Make the dough: mix the flour, salt and warm water and knead 8 minutes until smooth. Rest 30 minutes, covered.
5. Roll the dough into a rope and cut into 32 pieces (about 1/4 oz / 8 g). Roll each into a thin 3 1/4-inch (8 cm) round, thinner at the edges than the center.
6. Put a heaped tablespoon of filling in the center. Pleat the edge all the way round, pinching each fold to the last (aim for 14 to 18 folds), and twist the top closed. Set on cabbage leaves in a bamboo steamer, 1 inch apart.
7. Steam over rapidly boiling water 8 to 9 minutes, until the skins are translucent and the dumplings have slumped slightly.
8. Serve in the steamer with vinegar and ginger. To eat: lift onto a spoon, nip a small hole, sip the soup, then dip and eat.

Contains: Wheat, soy, sesame.