I thought I would never move beyond curry as my favorite Asian food, but within 24 hours of arriving in China, a dumpling local to the Yangtze river delta is giving my complex curries quite a run.
My friend took me to a small corner “restaurant,” a typical Chinese joint with a few tables and bright fluorescent lights. Baskets of skewered vegetables, tofu and meatballs were stacked against a wall; I picked out several and handed my basketful to a woman who dumped it in a broth to cook. While we waited for our soup, a bamboo steamer arrived, and my friend explained to me how to eat the Shanghai dumplings inside.
“They’re filled with hot soup, so be careful not to spill it in your lap,” he said. He instructed me to bite a small piece of the purse-like dumpling, and then suck the scalding, oily broth out. After I slurped out the broth (the most difficult part was reigning in the dumpling with my chopsticks — I’m still a little rusty). I dipped the dumpling in vinegar (“It’s good for you!” explained my friend), and popped the whole pocket in my mouth. What followed was a mouthful of savory, meaty and doughy goodness, a pork soup explosion in my mouth.
These particular dumplings are copied all over China, but are best in Shanghai. Residents are so proud of them, in fact, that my friend figures that the worst insult you could ever give a Shanghai citizen would be “screw your mother’s dumplings.”
Photo: Gary Soup, Flickr