As the restaurant expanded — first to Japan, then to Arcadia, California, and then to 19 other sites around the world — so did love for the meaty soup dumplings. Xiao long bao will always be served piping hot in a bamboo steamer. Instead, wait for them to cool for a minute or two; any longer, and the dough could split and spill the liquid gold within. Take a little bite from the pleated top to allow some of the steam to escape. The crown of dough at the top is important for many reasons, and a good xiao long bao will have a top made out of 14 crimped sides.
You can add black vinegar and ginger to the dumpling or to the spoon beforehand. What made xiao long bao different from other steamed dumplings was the addition of aspic, a jellified meat stock, which melted into a deeply flavoured broth once the buns were steamed. Making aspic in the 19th century was time consuming: after boiling animal bones and leaving the broth to simmer for several hours, it was then left to cool and set to gelatin.
What did, however, was the taste. The buns were an instant hit and their popularity spread by word of mouth, with patrons forming queues that spilled out of the door. There is, according to historical legend, a more mythical explanation of the origins of the name.
During the 18th century, Emperor Qianlong tried these local specialities when he visited Wuxi, a city near Shanghai. It is because of this that some argue xiao long bao was named after him. Whether or not this is historically accurate is another matter, but the tale has served to elevate the xiao long bao as a motif in Chinese culture.
In , the first Din Tai Fung restaurant in Taipei — a cooking oil retail business-turned-steamed dumpling restaurant — hired a chef from eastern China who knew how to make delicious xiao long bao without following a recipe. He went on to train apprentices to master the dumpling.
According to the restaurant, this was a baptism of fire: apprentices spent weeks observing how they were made before being separated into groups and perfecting all the details under tight time frames. Over time, the restaurant cultivated a generation of xiao long bao experts.
But as the restaurant grew in popularity, they eventually had to expand to all four floors. The family moved to a bigger building nearby to accommodate the increasing number of patrons coming to their buzzing business. Din Tai Fung went on to become a worldwide chain with trendy, upmarket branches in major international cities such as Los Angeles, Singapore and London.
While pork is usually the standard filling, there are plenty of creative variations to try. To make the dumplings, gelatin cubes or aspic are added between the tiny balls of filling and thin sheets of dough. The sheet is then folded into 18 pleats, with the excess twisted at the top to create its trademark topknot. The heat inside the basket melts the aspic into a delicious, steaming broth, creating a parcel of soup that has scalded the giddy mouths of xiao long bao novices for centuries.
Using chopsticks, place one xiao long bao on a flat spoon — the idea is that you bite into the topknot first to open the bun and let a little steam out. Then lift the spoon towards your mouth and eat the bun in one bite, allowing the tender juices to ripple across your tongue.
It only gets messy if you try to eat it in two bites. And be careful — the soup is hot! Jia Jia Tang Bao. The first, most widely accepted version takes us to Nanxiang, a suburb of Shanghai sometime in the s. A man named Huang Mingxian, the owner of a restaurant called Ri Hua Xuan is said to have invented the dumpling by adding aspic — a meat broth in soled jelly form — to the pork mince. Upon steaming — or heating of any kind — the aspic would become liquify and leave the inside of the dumpling swimming in delicious broth.
The fact that the dumplings were small and delicate and the confusion it caused his customers was apparently hilarious to Huang. The locals started calling their soup dumplings Nanxiang xiao long bao — correctly identifying the size named the size xiao small , and adding long basket as they were always steamed and served in baskets. Qianlong travelled up and down the Yangtze river so often the locals nicknamed him along the river and so was given Youlong or Swimming Dragon.
During one of his many fluvial voyages, the emperor was allegedly given xiaolongbao to try in Wuxi, a city in Jiangsu province not far from Shanghai. Already a local speciality, the emperor was so enthused with xiao long bao that he boasted about these amazing dumplings up and down the Yangtze, spreading their fame and popularity across China.
So which one is true? Probably the first one. Cook up your favourite Japanese-inspired dishes with Obento sauces.
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