Ivy stood over my shoulder and watched as I tired to fold the seam of dough with slow caution. “ Those nails. They make holding the boodle difficult. They are pretty, but not dependable for folding dumplings. ” She was right. I was struggling to make my dumpling look as seamless and perfect as hers. But, I felt better watching my husband who was doing worse than I was. My dumplings needed makeup, his needed plastic operation. We were hard at work in Ivy Chen ’ s kitchen in Taipei. Our mission : to recreate Din Tai Fung ’ s xiaolongbao.
One of Taiwan ’ s most celebrated exports is Din Tai Fung. The restaurant specializes in dumplings and noodles. But, their pièce de résistance is their xiaolongbao, a steamed dumpling with meat and a soup broth inside. Unlike your common flash-frozen menu, the dumplings are made fresh. That means the insides are fat, not dry and the dough is chewy, not cartilaginous. People travel for miles, across city and state borders, to eat at this place. At my local outpost the wait for a table is never less than 45 minutes, and can exceed 90 minutes. So what is the hidden ? ? ? We came to Ivy to find out. Ivy spent years experimenting and researching how to make dumplings Din Tai Fung-style. We headed to her cozy apartment in the Shilin District to get her steering .
The Broth
The first footstep in making the dumplings is getting the broth correct. This separate can take an entire day. thus Ivy prepared it in promote and explained the key component : pork peel. pork barrel is important for two reasons, first gear season, and second collagen. To get the soup inside the dumpling you need it to be solid first. The collagen in the skin will turn the broth into a gelatin when it ’ randomness cold. then, when the dumpling is heated the broth will melt and you get soup in your dumpling. It ’ s a very alike process to making mellow lava cake. The pork barrel skin is combined with chicken bones, spices, rice wine and urine. After these cook down, the broth cools and turns to a jellify. According to Ivy, no matter which Din Tai Fung dumpling you choose the broth includes pork hide. It provides a meaty, umami season and has strong enough proteins to keep the soup solid until it hits the steam.
Read more: Old Fashioned Peach Dumplings Recipe
Preparing the filling for the dumplings
The Filling
Din Tai Fung has a few fill options : runt, pork, cancer, chicken and squash. But the classic is pork, so we went with that. We mixed reason pork barrel with spices and the broth before cooling it down into a gelatin. Less than an hour late we were ready to start stuffing our dumplings. As we cooked, we learned how Ivy came to being a cook teacher. It started with her desire to practice English. She offered Mandarin classes to meet expats, but her students became more matter to in food than linguistic process. So she started cooking classes. immediately Ivy teaches chefs and dignitaries from all around the universe. And, sometimes makes time for normal folks like us .
The Dough
future, is the cold water boodle. It ’ s a dim-witted combination of flour, water and salt. This recipe gets you everything from dumpling skins to noodles and won ton wrappers. Making the dough was the easy character. It ’ south fill up that takes skill. At Din Tai Fung there ’ s a window display where you can watch the staff roll, stuff and seal each dumpling. The process is like watching an car assembly production line. They operate with speed and preciseness. That was the complete inverse of us .
Staff filling dumplings at the Taipei 101 branch A soup dumpling is catchy because during the cook summons the woof will expand. That means you need room for it to grow and a uncompromising base to hold the weight of the soup. seepage is the last thing you want from your soup dumplings ! You roll the dough out into a r-2, but to get the perfect balance, the center needs to be thicker than the sides. This involves rolling and twisting the boodle, and releasing your blackmail as you roll. It ’ second 10x harder than patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time.
After rolling, we moved on to filling and sealing the dumplings. Folding beautiful meaty purses of dough is a job that requires a deft pass. That skill only comes with practice…that I didn ’ thymine have. I ’ d usher Ivy my attack and she ’ vitamin d smile at my imperfect initiation. But by dumpling six mine looked pretty damn good ! The moment of accuracy though was eating our xiaolongbao. Would they be better than Din Tai Fung ’ randomness ?
Of path not ! ! ! Are you kidding ? The flavor was decidedly on par with the real number matter, but our wrapping skills were not. That meant there was some seepage. But our arduous workplace made them taste so much better. And after spending a day in the kitchen, I walked aside with new appreciation for these balls of good .
