Soup dumplings are one of the most memorable dishes I ate during childhood. I grew up in Beijing in the 90s when restaurants from other regions were still scarce, and we rarely ate out. But there was this hole-in-the-wall Xiao Long Bao spot near my mom’s office that had the best soup dumplings. Once in a while, she would take me there to enjoy a steamer of piping hot soup dumplings as a treat. Their wrappers were literally paper thin, because you could see the juice inside through the semi-transparent dough. I took great care as I peeled them out of the steamer, careful to not break apart the dough and lose the soup. And when I successfully slurped up a mouthful of the fragrant soup, it was the greatest satisfaction for a 10-year old, one that lingers for 20 something years later.
What are soup dumplings (Xiao Long Bao)
Xiao Long Bao (小笼包), or soup dumplings, are a type of steamed dumpling from Shanghai cuisine (Jiangsu province for the greater region). In China, you will find there are many versions of soup dumplings that come in different flavors and sizes, but the most popular one is Xiao Long Bao. It features a paper thin wrapper filled with a very mild pork filling and a pocket of fragrant soup, served with a gingery vinegar dipping sauce. Xiao Long Bao is a type of dim sum that is traditionally enjoyed as a snack or during a meal as an appetizer or even a main dish. It’s certainly a complicated dish to make at home. But it’s such a great way to impress your guests if you’re hosting a dinner party.
How to put soup into the dumplings
To put soup into the dumplings, you will need to make aspic, or congealed meat broth. As you might have noticed, if you make chicken broth or pork broth at home, the soup will congeal into a gelatinous texture once chilled. Xiao Long Bao uses the same technique, only it makes the gelatin even thicker, so it forms a jelly-like texture that you can cut into small pieces that stay solid while you work them into dumplings. What you do is wrap the jelly into the dumpling along with the rest of the filling ingredients. Once cooked, the gelatin will melt down and become the soupy part of the filling.
Traditional approach
Traditionally, the meat gelatin is made with pork skin and/or trotters. Like making a pork broth, you simmer these ingredients for hours on the stove top, and then reduce the broth. The gelatin from the bones, skin and marrow will create a very rich tasting broth that will congeal once cooled. However, since pork skin and trotters might not be found in a regular grocery store in the US, we looked for a different approach.
Our approach
Although I really love the scrumptious taste of soup dumplings, sometimes the filling can be quite heavy and greasy. That’s why I decided to look into creating a chicken broth to fill the dumplings instead of the traditional pork soup. A while ago I talked about how to make chicken broth from leftover bones. This recipe uses a similar approach – using chicken backs and necks. And instead of braising, we developed an oven roasting method that helps you to get a very concentrated broth in less time.
How to make soup dumplings
Prepare the jelly broth (aspic)
NOTE:
You can easily find the ingredients and they are very cheap to get.The method requires less cooking time.The result is more consistent, taking the guesswork out of how much you should reduce the broth.Because of the oven roasting method, you will get a super rich tasting soup just like you would with the pork version.
Depending on the type of pot you use and the quality of the chicken backs, the quantity of the broth can vary. I highly recommend weighing the gelatin and adding a bit of chicken fat if the quantity is not quite there.
Prepare the filling
Assemble the soup dumplings
Tips to success
Dough texture
Depending on the brand of flour you use, the humidity of your room, and many other factors, the flour will absorb water at a different rate. Even with all-purpose flour, the type you find in Asia is much lower in gluten (protein) than the one in the US. And within the US, I’ve found some flour brands such as King Arthur Flour have a slightly higher gluten content (11.7%). For this recipe, we tested using a regular all-purpose flour in the US, which is around 10% to 11% gluten. When you make the dough, pay attention to the texture (you can view the video for more details). The dough should be soft but not sticky. Once rested, it would be quite pliable and easy to roll out. The recipe below gives 5 grams of difference in the cold water. But based on your own environment, you might need to adjust it a bit further at the stage of adding cold water.
Ingredients measurement
Soup dumplings are a delicate dish that requires precise measurements to achieve the best result. I highly recommend using a kitchen scale instead of volumetric measurements.
Rolling pin
A small Chinese rolling pin is highly recommended for making all types of buns and dumplings. Different from the big French style rolling pin, the smaller rolling pin allows you to work on one small wrapper at a time and it’s easier to maneuver.
Bamboo steamer
That being said, we’ve tested the recipe with a regular stainless steel steamer and it worked as well. To prevent the water dripping from the lid, you can place a clean kitchen towel over the pot and place the lid over the towel.
How to serve and store
Serving
Once you’ve made the soup dumplings, it’s important to to serve them immediately while they’re still hot. Because the longer you let the cooked dumplings sit, the more the dough will absorb the soup and your dumplings will end up less juicy. Since the dumplings are juicy and delicious, you can totally eat them by themselves. To serve them the traditional way, you can cut some thin ginger strips and soak them in Chinkiang vinegar. It adds a tanginess to the dumplings and tastes very delicious. To eat a soup dumpling, carefully lift it with your chopsticks onto a soup spoon. From there, you can:
How to make ahead
If you plan to prepare soup dumplings in advance, you can make the dough and the filling in advance, and wrap and cook the dumplings when you’re ready and serve them immediately. The wrapped dumplings can sit covered in the fridge for up to an hour but I highly recommend cooking them as soon as possible. The longer the raw dumplings sit, the drier the outer layer of the dough will become and the soggier the inside will become. Unfortunately, there’s no great way to store the wrapped dumplings in the freezer. I’ve tried it but all my dumplings ended up bursting open during the steaming process. The store-bought frozen soup dumplings use chemical additives to stabilize the filling – that’s why they can be frozen and still come out soupy. But chemical additives are not something that can be easily done at home.
Afterthoughts
Making Xiao Long Bao at home definitely requires some time and effort. It’s one of those things that we would call a “restaurant dish” in China and would never make at home, since you can easily walk down the street and order a dozen of them for a fairly cheap price. However, enjoying soup dumplings has become a luxury after coming to the US. While they’re readily available here in Manhattan’s Chinatown, they might be hard to come by where you live. It makes me appreciate this Shanghainese delicacy even more. And I hope this recipe will help you create some authentic tasting soup dumplings in your own kitchen. This recipe requires precise measurements to make it work. I highly recommend using a scale to measure the ingredients for the wrappers instead of using volumetric measurements. Lilja Walter is a part of the Omnivore’s Cookbook team and worked closely with Maggie to develop and test this recipe.
