Soup Dumplings from Singapore to Seattle to My Steamer

Do you have a food that has chased you across continents? That you will go hours out of your way to eat when you get the chance? A food that is a destination? 

I do. 

I remember when I first learned of soup dumplings, or Xiao Long Bao. 

Walking through the mall in Singapore, I stopped, fascinated as I watched the chef behind glass making dumplings. The space was immaculate, hospital clean. He folded perfect little tear drops at high speed; it was like watching a robot. Unfortunately for our bellies, we were on a strict budget and almost everything in Singapore was beyond our daily funds, so the closest we got to tasting the Din Tai Fung soup dumplings was the window. 

Several years later, when searching for a restaurant on a trip to Seattle, I came across Din Tai Fung again. I started reading the reviews - Michelin star (not this location), amazing dumplings, long waits. I knew it sounded familiar, but couldn’t place it. 

When we arrived, the connection hit me - this was another location of that beautiful window I had watched with fascination in Singapore. Earlier than we wanted to eat (thankfully), we added ourselves to the waitlist and were told the wait would be 90 minutes. We wandered the outdoor mall, and spent most of our time in the Amazon store, which at the time only existed in Seattle. I love browsing book stores, so as I wandered I added more books to my never ending to-read list. I could have stayed all night, but we received the text for our table. We headed straight over to the restaurant, and were promptly seated. The whole experience was a model of efficiency, although we felt a bit lost with the long, spiral-bound menu. The only thing we knew we wanted was soup dumplings. We ordered some stuff, hoping we chose the right amount of food. It was all delicious, but the soup dumplings were magic. Pillowy dough filled with boiling hot soup and filling. After eating the first one in one bite, our burnt tongues told us we needed to try other options. We tried different strategies to eat them -- poking holes with chopsticks, draining out the soup into a bowl, nibbling a little hole and letting it cool. The challenge of figuring out how to eat the tasty but way-too-hot food was part of the experience. I’m glad we had no idea what we were doing. 

Over the next several years, we went back to Din Tai Fung in city after city, at every chance. We would go an hour out of our way to make it happen, wait for two hours, even take our kids. We were obsessed - it became a thing we had to do anytime we were reasonably close. Over the visits, we just accepted the magic, without giving another thought to how to get soup inside a dumpling. We also got better at not burning our mouths on the first bite. 

Now that we are staying home, and Din Tai Fung is not in our near future, we are missing out on soup dumplings. In Austin, Lin Asian Bistro serves great soup dumplings, not quite as good, but really good, but I just can’t see a soup dumpling surviving a take out situation, and we are not ready to eat at a restaurant yet. Which leaves us soup dumpling-less.

Until last night. 

Like almost everyone, I’ve been digging in to find new things to do while staying home. In browsing Air BNB experiences one night, I saw a soup dumpling class taught by Cici from Shanghai. I was intrigued, and kept thinking about it. Finally, I decided we were doing it. I signed up for a late night (8-10 PM) class on a Monday night, so we could focus without the kids interrupting us. I feel like I’m that guy in Green Eggs and Ham. I’ll eat them at Din Tai Fung, at Lin Asian Bistro, or in my kitchen. I’ll eat them at 10 AM or 10 PM. I will eat them here or there or wherever I can without getting COVID. 

I ordered a bamboo steamer. I’m not always the best at details, just charging ahead. (You can tell I’m an Aries). So my steamer was enormous, and only fits in one of my pots, and only by squeezing it down a little. I’m guessing that’s not quite right, but I’m only buying one steamer and returns are a pain, so giant steamer it is. Making it work.

I invited Tommy to join me on a date night to make soup dumplings, and he was in. I think it was mostly the fear that he wouldn’t get to eat soup dumplings if he turned me down, or it could be the boredom of staying home. Also, it’s awkward to refuse dates with your wife even if you don’t want to do the thing, especially during COVID when she knows you don’t have any other plans. 

I emailed my mom, who also loves to cook, to see if she wanted to join us. She signed up too. 

I know when I sign up for this class that I am going to ruin the magic of soup inside a dumpling because I’m going to learn how that happens. Tommy’s theory is that it’s injected, but he doesn’t cook, and as I think about that, I know that wouldn’t work. As I read the class description, I realize the magic is in the very first step of prep work, preparing a pork skin jelly. 

When you steam the dumpling, the jelly filling inside the dumpling liquifies and creates the soup that is contained within the wrapper. A fascinating and creative idea for making a really unique food, created long before the food chemists got in the kitchen with the liquid nitrogen and the foam. It reminds me of the cooking process for another delicious food I loved --- deep fried jello. For both, take a jello-like substance, wrap in dough, cook, then -- eat strange but delicious magical mystery food. Deep Fried Jello made its debut in 2016 at the Texas State Fair, where the competition for weird and wonderful foods is intense. It won the Big Tex Choice Awards, which recognizes the most innovative and delicious foods introduced at the Texas State Fair that year. I have to wonder if we have tried wrapping other jellied foods in dough and cooking them. The only two foods in this category that I know are both amazing, and have won a Michelin Star and a Big Tex Choice Award, the two most prestigious awards in food, so perhaps there is a chance for expansion in this category?

The instructions for the class say that you have to make pork skin jelly ahead of class. This isn’t a recipe I’ve done before, but she sent a link to a YouTube video and a recipe. The recipe calls for pork skin, which you can only get at HEB as chicharones, which I’m certain will not work. I didn’t want to make the trip to H-Mart, so I decided to go with her backup option, chicken feet.

Chicken feet are available at HEB, although not on curbside. I was so committed to making soup dumplings that I went inside, for only the second time since March. The first time was to buy posterboard to make protest signs for the Black Lives Matter protest we went to, and the signs were almost totally sold out at HEB, and I was forced to buy neon pink. Which I was totally fine with, since that’s my favorite color, and a sign of community engagement in Black Lives Matter, which is also my favorite. Okay, so my second time inside a grocery store since March, and I’m walking purposefully to the back to find the chicken feet tucked in the corner of the meat section.

HEB calls them chicken paws. Why are they called chicken paws? What is the difference between a paw and a foot? Here’s what google says --- 

Paws tend to be furry and ovoid, with pads, and claws. Feet are elongated, almost hairless, with nails instead of claws.

I stand by saying chicken feet, not paws. But I had to settle for paws.

I wasn’t sure how much I would need, but they are cheap, so I bought three packages and headed home to make chicken feet jelly. Mmmmm...appetizing. 

I wasn’t sure how to convert her instructions from using pork skin to chicken feet, and in messaging her, she said I could just substitute them. The instructions said to boil the pork skin, then scrape off the fat, then boil again, chop, and puree in the blender. Then you chill it and it turns into pork skin jello. 

But with chicken feet - do I scrape? Do I blend it all up, including the bones and toenails? Will my blender blend chicken feet, nails and skin? I tried to search the internet, and ended up down a rabbit hole of controversy about how to properly use chicken feet, including whether the bottoms are covered in chicken shit, if you should trim the nails off first or if the nails contain all the best parts, how chicken feet will cure all the illness and chronic diseases you have, if it’s important that your chicken feet are organic, or if you should really just start raising your own chickens just for access to perfect chicken feet. I tell you, people on the internet are really, really into the details of using chicken feet, and they disagree on pretty much every aspect. 

I finished reading recipes, blogs and reddit more confused. I stared at the package of chicken feet, and decided that since no one could agree, I would just do the easiest thing. I put them into the instant pot, which cooks the shit, and hopefully gelatin and collagen, out of everything. I added the aromatics and water, closed it, and hoped for the best.

The timer went off, and I had to face the quandary. I hadn’t decided what to do about the blender part. Should I throw it all in the blender and hope for the best? I tried to consult with Tommy, and he offered to weigh in if I wanted his opinion so I wouldn’t be solely responsible for us not being able to make soup dumplings, but he also honestly admitted he had no idea. I chickened out on blending, and decided to strain the chicken feet and aromatics out of the broth, throw in a little unflavored gelatin for assurance that it would gel, and refrigerate. 

The next morning, I checked to make sure it was set -- and that in turn, we were set -- for our class. Our gel was all gelled, and we were ready.

As we were prepping our ingredients, getting out the oyster sauce, pork, flour, scale, and everything else, Tommy hatched this weird plan to pretend to the teacher that we didn’t know my mom, who was the only other participant on the zoom class. He got my mom on board, and they conspired to make rude remarks to each other throughout the class. I was confused about the fun of being rude to each other, but it was time to start so here we go.

We logged on, and Cici shared her sign behind her made by her daughter. She had not one Michelin star like Din Tai Fung, but three right there on her homemade sign. She is a stay at home mom and helps to support her family through teaching these classes. She shared a little more about herself, and then asked if we knew each other. My mom confidently said, “No.” It dawns on me how ridiculous this is, since my mom and I look and sound very alike. But we carry on with this odd charade of not knowing each other for the whole class. I refuse to participate in the rude commenting, but Tommy and my mom make a sporadic effort to be snarky at quiet moments for the rest of the class - never to Cici, only to each other. 

Next we get started with making dumplings by making dough with a 2:1 flour:water dough. It became an incredibly malleable and soft dough, soft like a baby’s bottom according to Cici. I love sensory stuff, and playing with the dough was very satisfying. 

Then it’s the moment of truth - we have to show our jelly to Cici. She thinks our is a weird color, but it’s set and she gamely makes the best of it. It’s supposed to be white, which is very odd looking, but ours is golden, like chicken broth. My mom’s is perfect, and she doesn’t miss the chance to insult us when ours is unconventional. 

We mix the filling for our dumplings by mixing ground pork, some flavorings (like oyster sauce, ginger and spring onions), and start to stir. We use chopsticks since Cici is using chopsticks, and she emphasizes the importance of stirring in only one direction. It’s an unexpected instruction, and we have a goal of making our filling smooth like ice cream, with the fat in the pork making it creamy. Then we chop up our jelly and mix that into the filling, and refrigerate the mixture. 

Now that the filling is ready, jellied chicken feet soup and all, it’s time to start rolling out the dough. She teaches us to measure it all out into small little balls of 9g, which seem far too small for a dumpling. Then we roll it out following her instructions and practice folding using more dough as pretend filling. When Cici gives helpful feedback to my mom, Tommy jumps in to comment on her mistake. I cringe every time they do this - it’s like having a dripping faucet in the background that I notice every time it gets quiet. 

Once we have demonstrated proficiency with folding, we are allowed to actually try it with filling. Tommy and I create an assembly line, one person rolling out the dough and then stepping aside to work on filling and folding, while the other person jumps in to roll out another dumpling dough. Once we make six or so, she tells us to start our water for the steamer. My mom teases us that we have only made six and she has made eight, and there are two of us. I’m not sure if Cici picked up on the barbs, or if she just politely decided to ignore them. 

Dumplings only have to steam for seven minutes, and then we are eating them. Now, they aren’t Din Tai Fung. But, they are really, really good. It’s quite a process to make them, but it was a fun one. Cici says that Din Tai Fung rolls their dough out much thinner and that’s part of why it’s not exactly the same. I felt like our dough was so thin, and I’m not sure I’m ever going to be a skilled enough dumpling roller to qualify for window duty at Din Tai Fung. 

We finished making as many dumplings as we could, and Cici told us we could freeze any we didn’t eat. To steam them from frozen takes one extra minute. I haven’t tried it yet, but that seems easy enough. She also said we could freeze extra jelly, and just re-boil it before chilling in the fridge again and it would work also. I’m hoping to have a dumpling party sometime, when parties are a thing again. I had a lot of fun folding and eating, and I’d love to share that with friends or family. My mom decided she won’t be making dumplings again, but she did offer to share her pork jelly so I can keep the magic going for us. 

We finished class, cleaned the kitchen, and ate all the remaining dumplings. We went to bed tired, full, and energized from having to use our brains and our hands to learn. As I crawled in  bed with my book, I imagined all the other random things I want to do while we are staying home. It was one of the first times that we felt transported during this time, and it alleviated some of the wanderlust that lurks in the edges of our minds.