小笼包Xiao long bao

The soup dumpling, in two moves that do the same work: the jelly — pork skin, boiled down and jellied, minced so fine it disappears into the filling — that melts into the soup when the steamer does its work; and the pleat, sixteen of them, that holds the soup in while the wrapper sets. The soup is not in the juice; it is in the jelly, and that is the whole trick.

The page is the wrappers article, on the small end, with the dumplings article's shape rule and the steaming article's gentle-heat rule all on one plate. The wrapper has to be thin enough to set in the 10 minutes without going rubbery, and pleated enough to hold the 10–15 ml of soup that the jelly becomes — that is the dish, and the rest is the filling doing its part.

Origin

Wuxi and Suzhou — the banquet table

Difficulty

5 / 5

Servings

4

Prep

2 hrs

Cook

12 min

Total

~2 hrs, of which the rest is the jelly setting

Equipment

• A flat board and a rolling pin, for the 7 cm circles — the pin does the last 2 mm of thickness that the wrapper needs
• A fine knife, for the jelly dice — the jelly has to be 2–3 mm so it disappears into the filling, not floats in it
• A steamer lined with a damp cloth, or with cabbage leaf, so the wrapper does not stick — not paper, which steams and tears
• A heatproof plate, large enough that the buns sit apart in a single layer — the steam does its work on the side that faces the air, and two layers is two different dishes
• A small well, of ginger in vinegar and soy, for the one that holds the soup back until the first bite

Ingredients

For 24 buns, 4 servings.

• 300 g pork, about half fat, minced by hand to a paste — the fat is what will melt into the jelly and carry the soup, and the paste is what will hold it
• 200 g pork skin, boiled 45 min and then set into a jelly overnight — minced to 2–3 mm before it goes in; this is the soup, in a solid, and the whole trick of the dish is in this ingredient and none other
• 2 tbsp Shaoxing wine, into the filling
• 1.5 tbsp soy, the dark if you have it, the light if you don't
• 1 scallion, minced fine — the green, the white, both
• 1 tsp ginger, grated, the juice squeezed in
• ½ tsp sugar, and a small pinch of white pepper
• 250 g flour, 160 ml water, and a small pinch of salt — the wrapper; the water is half-hot, half cold, which is what gives the dough the least bit of stretch it needs for the pleat to hold
• The well: 2 tbsp soy, 1 tbsp black vinegar, and a finger of fresh ginger, sliced fine — the one that comes on the plate, and cuts the fat of the soup as it is drunk

Method

1. The jelly, the day before. The pork skin, washed and cut in 3 cm pieces, into a pot of cold water with a thumb of ginger and a tbsp of the wine — bring to a boil, skim, then the heat to the least it will hold for 45 min, until the skin gives when pressed. Pour the 400 ml or so of the liquid over the skin into a wide, flat dish, and the whole thing, uncovered, into the cold. Overnight, the liquid sets into a firm jelly — the soup of the dish, in a solid, waiting to be minced.
2. The filling, in one direction. The pork paste, and the minced jelly, the Shaoxing, the soy, the scallion, the ginger juice, the sugar, the pepper — all in, and mixed one direction, with a chopstick, 3–4 min, until the paste resists and then releases, and is glossy. The direction does the glutein in the pork, and the gloss is the paste holding the water it is about to carry — a paste that looks dry is a paste that will not hold the jelly.
3. The wrappers. The flour and the salt, the water in a stream, and mixed to a rough mass; turned out, worked 5 min, to a smooth, slightly tacky dough, and wrapped and rested 30 min. Then rolled out to 2 mm, cut to 7 cm circles, and the edges of each one left a little thicker than the center — the center is what the steam sets first, and the edge is what the pleat holds. The wrappers, one on top of another, with a cloth over them, until the hands are ready.
4. The wrap, sixteen pleats. A heaped tsp of filling, center of the wrapper — about 15 g, and no more; the soup is 10–15 ml, and the pleat has to hold it without a tear. One edge of the circle, pinched up, and the 16 pleats, one at a time, each one pinched tight against the last, the top closing over the middle of the filling as you go, and the buns set, pleat-side down, on the steamed cloth a 2 cm apart — the top, closed, is what holds the soup in until the first bite opens it.
5. The steam. The steamer's water at a rolling boil before the buns go in, the cloth damp and not wet, and the buns in, pleat-side down, in a single layer with the 2 cm of air that the steam needs. The lid on, and the heat the same rolling the whole 10 min — a little longer if the buns are a full 15 g, a little less if they are the lighter 12 g. The pull is the wrapper: it should be set, with the least bit of give, and the soup inside a clear, hot liquid — the jelly, entirely melted, sitting in the middle of the filling and not in the plate.
6. The table. The plate, the well of ginger in the vinegar and the soy, and the buns coming straight off the steamer, as the batch that came out first came out. The first bite, on top, in the closed part, and the soup, drunk before the filling is touched — that is the dish, and the rest of it is the filling and the wrapper, with the vinegar cutting the fat as it goes.

Common failures

• The soup, in the plate, not in the bun. The wrapper broke in the steam — a tear in the pleat, or a spot of the wrapper so thin it gave, and the 15 ml of the soup out, onto the cloth, in the first 30 seconds of the cook. The fix is the edge a little thicker than the center, the 16 pleats pinched tight, and the filling no more than 15 g — a bun that holds 20 g of filling and 15 ml of soup is a bun that will break, and the one that does not break is the one that was wrapped to the number, not to the look.
• Rubbery wrappers, flat buns. The wrapper too thick, or the steam too long — the dough sets past its window, and the bun that comes on the plate is a dumpling the size of a coin, with a skin. The 2 mm, the 10 min, and the single layer are the three numbers that keep the wrapper on the correct side of the line, and the steaming article's rule — the pull when the wrapper gives the least bit — is the one that does the telling.
• The soup, thin and watery, with no body. The jelly minced too coarse, and the pieces sitting in the filling as a lardon, not melted into the paste — the soup the bun drinks is liquid, and the liquid that comes out of a coarse jelly is the water the skin boiled with, not the fat and the gelatin that make the soup a mouthful. The 2–3 mm dice is the fix, and the jelly, set overnight, is the only version of the ingredient that works.
• The paste, dry and crumbly, with no gloss. The mixing stopped short — the pork paste never got the direction, and the water it is about to carry has nothing to hold it, so the filling comes out of the bun as a crumb, and the soup, thin. The 3–4 min of the one direction, and the gloss that comes back on the surface of the paste, are the two marks that the filling is ready to be wrapped, and neither of them is a thing that can be faked at the steamer.

Variations

• The crab (the xiaolong of the name, with the crab as the point): a 100 g of crab meat, picked, the roe kept whole, into the filling for half the buns — the Hangzhou xiāo-long-bao, and the soup with the sweetness of the crab in it, all of it in the first two bites.
• The plain pork, the small one: the same filling, and the buns 12 g of filling, in a wrapper 1 cm smaller — the one that eats in three bites, and the soup, all of it, in the first two.
• The vegetable (the jujube-mushroom of the temple table): the pork and the jelly, both out, and the filling the Japanese section's shiitake, minced, with the oil, the soy, and the scallion — the soup, thinner, the paste the work, and the dumplings article's shape rule, held on the one that does not need the jelly's whole weight.

What to serve with it

The well, and nothing else, on the same plate — the ginger in the vinegar, cut the fat of the soup as it is drunk, and the soy the salt the bun does not have. With the plate, the Chinese section's congee, if the day is a breakfast day, or the scallion pancake, if it is a lunch day — the two, with the buns, and the soup, drunk before the filling is touched, as the plate; the rest is the table around them.

The wrapper · Dumplings · Steaming · Steamed egg custard