Legendary Dumplings Served in an Auntie’s Living Room in Chengdu

one of the Sichuan techniques is to soak things like ginger inside of water which helps get rid of a little bit of the gaminess of the pork itself self you can see how smooth that final filling is you see that little bit of a opening you learn how to make dumplings from anywhere else and they'll say You must keep all of the sides crimped you must keep the whole thing intact that's not the case here the deliciousness of this dumpling is the interaction of The Dumpling with the sauce and you want that sauce to go inside of the dumpling you want that sauce

to soak inside of this relatively soft skin it's almost less of a crimped dumpling and more of a cooked sandwich maybe something like this so these two aunties are making a huge amount of dumplings throughout the day Auntie y the owner of this shop has been here for 21 years here comes the making of the filling First Step first smash Ginger with the side of the cleaver to get that flavor out but that's the ginger that's going to get rid of the gaminess inside of that pork she's rubbing salt directly into the ginger so that the salt draws out that ginger

juice draws out that moisture that's the juice that's going to lend moisture to the pork the lean pork goes into the bowl a combination of cuts in between the loin and the shoulder a generous amount of table salt into the pork the key to the deliciousness of the filling here is the manipulation of texture she's really squeezing that pork as she's agitating this pork the meat will slowly slowly get tackier it'll get in some ways a little bit rubbery but it will become the clean Porky glue that is needed for that filling to keep the wrapper together with

hand's filter the ginger water is goes in that pork like a sponge is going to soak up that Ginger water as she's moving you can see those protein strands extending you can see little spiky strands coming apart Auntie says the filling must be mixed in one direction and this is actually a little bit of intergenerational knowledge that is shared in many many different parts of China the idea here obviously is that she wants to extend those protein strands as long as possible if you're mixing in two directions you end up risking breaking those strands of

protein something that's smooth might not be so appealing in many other context but in The Dumpling context where it's sandwiched between dough it makes all the sense in the world there's no sesame oil there's no garlic there's no cabbage it is just an expression of pork and its flavor and its texture Auntie's making me my bowl of dumplings 10 of them go into the pot it's a rolling boil she's agitating it constantly keeping it moving for the first seconds to make sure that it doesn't stick to the bottom that's when the starch granules begin to absorb

that water you have to make sure that it's moving at a rolling boil so that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot because they're cooking in the same pot of water and The Dumpling is not totally filled some of that pork liquid that leeches out is going to flavor the water so they're making a very gentle pork Thro almost in which they're going to cook the subsequent dumplings I know we're just talking about boiling dumplings here but there is a little bit of technique and there is attention to detail what she's doing right now to keep the timing of

the cooking of the dumplings correct she adds a little bit of water at a time my grandma taught me how to make dumplings in the exact same way after you add the dumplings water comes to a boil add a little bit of cold water that brings the temperature down again and theoretically you're supposed to do this three times in order to get the dumplings to fully cook of course now having been a chef for a little while the cooking time of that dumpling is totally dependent on how much hot water there actually is how much cold water there actually is but the

fact of the matter is that this is a reliable folk way of keeping time of cooking dumplings she's looking for the skin to be shiny and she wants the edges of that skin to be a little bit translucent that is the sign of starch fully gelatinizing she's getting rid of the water draining it really well back and forth and here comes the seasoning first this thicken sweetened toy sauce second the minced garlic third chili crisp chili oil okay here's the thing with at the minimum three layers of flavor in terms of the sauce number one is the chili oil this

chili crisp she says it's cooked at about 300° there is at the minimum chili flakes sesame seeds really important to not forget where is actually the garlic and the minced raw garlic some places like to have minced garlic with a little bit of grape seed oil here it's water on the bottom is a fu is Yo the modified soy sauce everyone that makes this dumpling has their own secret recipe but usually it's something to the effect of slab sugar brown sugar the soy sauce usually some sort of red soy sauce or slightly sweetened soy sauce darker in color and then

it's fortified with a huge amount of warming citan spices citan peppercorn cardamom long pepper fennel so on and so forth it really depends on the store but this is one of the things that she really insisted we don't get the recipe or we don't film I am a huge am a huge fan of this interactive element of bringing the flavors all so good filling is just like a meatball it holds the whole thing together a little bit of gentle sweetness that chili it's it's spicy but it's not um it's not deadening it's not scorching is a small pop of brightness oil on the

outside of the skin makes the whole dumping so slippery it goes down so easy you see the skin is still a little bit open after it boils and so that sauce goes inside of the dumpling it's infectious this thing is really just just so good and again just like everything else in chungu snack culture small small bowl you can pop these all day long she opens in the morning some people come for breakfast but she's open all day so people come for lunch people come for the snack in the afternoon the smoothness of The Dumpling skin is mimicked by the smoothness of

the meat in the middle itself when you pop this in it's just one slippery bite just one cohesive pop of spice sweet Savory salty this might be one of the first times we've shot and I've finished the entire portion of something the first time hits the table it also is like eating on your Auntie's house watch a little bit of Television talk a little smack Bueno that lingering sweetness that lingering garlic lingering spice everything that we ate stays with you till the end good stuff that was stuff that was delicious also called this dish was invented

maybe 150 years ago by a guy by the last name of Jo and Chef here is the Legacy she came from that restaurant that's where she trained and now she's really made it her own by bringing this delicious dish into her own home I'm just going to say bye to Chef real quick