Sunday, November 13, 2011

Soup dumplings at Joe's Shanghai

 



Hayden calls these 'weaponized food'.  Soup dumplings are steamed dumplings filled with incredibly hot broth and 
a meatball.  You have to carefully lift them onto your spoon, not tearing the soft dough and letting the broth escape.
Bite a little bit of the dough and make a small hole.  Spoon in a little sauce- soy sauce, vinegar, ginger and chili paste.  
Wait until the broth cools a little and then pop it into your mouth.

So wonderful!  Juicy and tender and meaty and doughy.  A little salty and spicy, with garlic, ginger, chili, pork.

Anita Lo makes these as an appetizer at Annissa.  This is an uptown version, with a slice of seared foie gras on top.
Now, I adore foie gras as much as the next guy.  But soup dumplings are so wonderful on their own that adding 
foie gras is a case of gilding the lily.

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