This is 小龙包 (pronounced xiao [shao] long bao) and it is perhaps my favorite food in the whole world. On the outside, they may look like ordinary dumplings, but we learned in elementary school not to judge a book by its cover. Inside, there can be anything - just as long as it isn't ordinary. These ones have meat and a spicy sauce. The other ones I bought here were filled with a yellow curry. Others still have shrimp, crab, eggs, yams, or bacon, always accompanied by some sort of soup or sauce. They are the ultimate evolution of the dumpling. Calling a xiao long bao a dumpling is like calling a human an ape! Or an amoeba!
"Xiao long" means "small dragon" in Mandarin, which also happens to be the given name of Bruce Lee. It's no coincidence. His parents named him after the greatest food in China and told him that if he could be half as fantastic and powerful as his namesake, he would become world famous. And so brought about the greatest kung fu actor of all-time, until the pressure of being as consistently amazing as his dumpling equivalent brought about his early death. This scrumptious dish creates and destroys heroes.
And so one must always obey proper rituals when eating xiao long bao. They are as follows:
Pick up your xiao long with your chopsticks and place it in your spoon. Have your vinegar (I believe Chinese vinegar is mixed with soy sauce. This is unconfirmed, but may explain its deliciousness) ready, you will need it soon. Using a spoon is not cheating. While the fork and knife are foreign to China, spoons are used on a meal-to-meal basis. Let's keep going:
Next, bite off the top and slurp out the delicious juice/sauce/soup/curry from the inside. I originally took two photos, before and after slurpage but they looked exactly the same. Recapping this is making me hungry.
Step Three (or Four if you count biting and slurping two separate steps). Use your chopsticks to drop your xiao long into your vinegar. I usually poke it around until vinegar gets physically inside the dumpling. That may be against protocol, I'll have to ask my superiors.
Finally, using either your spoon or chopsticks - or both - eat your xiao long. This results in temporary bliss, but are you truly satisfied? Heck no! These things are tiny! Back in September, I ate 30 of these little guys! Taste-wise, they are truly in a class of their own, but must be accompanied with another dish in order to ensure the filling of your stomach.
Alternative Method: Step 1, dunk whole xiao long in vinegar. Step 2, eat it. However, do so at your own peril. The rush of flavor from the meat, vinegar, dumpling skin, and juice/sauce/soup/curry can be overwhelmingly good.
While I've seen people prepare xiao long bao, how they make it is still a mystery to me. If I learn how, I'll share the secret with all of you here. And then this will become the second signature dish on my menu at Scuba's Ji Dan Bing and Xiao Long Shack!
Stephen "Scuba" Lauer
2 comments:
O Steve, this reminds me of that great day in Nanjing where we ate two breakfasts because the dumplings were so good! (the first one was xiao long bao but was the second one called that too?) Hope you're having fun in Shanghai!
Oh yeah those were really good too... but not xiao long bao. They were fried with something tasty inside, but no soup/sauce/curry in it. But I don't think it was just jiao zi either. Maybe it's a Nanjing specialty d of some sort. I'm doing great back in Shanghai, I hope your doing well (and staying safe) in England... when do you get back?
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