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xiao-long-bao-chinese-soup-dumplings

Nanxiang, Shanghai, China is the birthplace of what everyone has fallen in love with: soup dumplings! This beloved dish is over 150 years old. Traditionally, this is made with either minced pork or crab, some vegetables, and includes aspic. This unusual ingredient is something that everyone has seen but may not have known the culinary term to describe it. These dumplings incorporate aspic; a rich meat stock that has been cooked down into a concentrated fluid that is later refrigerated, and allowed to set up into a jelly the next day. When reheated, the jelly reverts to its liquid form. The rich collagen development gives the aspic the ability to firm up. NIGHT BEFORE: roast off some chicken, pork, beef, and/or a combination of bones in the oven for no longer than 45 minutes to an hour. Dump the bones and pan drippings into a pot and add fresh water. Bring this to a boil and immediately reduce the heat until a gentle boil is achieved. This will need to be cooked down for a few hours to get concentrated. A good rule is 50% reduction. Once done, strain everything out. Discard the solids once they have been cooled down. Run your stock through a fine mesh strainer, lined with cheesecloth or a tea towel. Once strained, pour off about a quart's worth of the stock into a small food storage container. Once the temperature has cooled off, cover, and store in the fridge. In the morning, this should be nice and jelled up. The rest of the stock can be stored in freezer-safe containers with lids for immediate use, or frozen for up to three months for best flavor. When creating a dumpling mixture, everything in the added recipe must be small, if not, finely minced. Because we are using aspic, the area that bears importance is keeping the mixture cold. That is why you must do the aspic the night before. The how-to video can be found on my Youtube channel.

Ingredients