Directions

MAKING THE JELLY:

1. Blanch the skin for 5 minutes to remove the bad smell.

2. Clean it and remove the fat because you don’t want your soup to be too oily.
3. Cut it into thin strips.
4. Prepare a pot of water (1.8 L of water). Put in your pork skin. Bring it to a boil and then down to low heat. Stew it for 1 hour.
5. After 1 hour, add a bunch of spring onion, some slices of ginger, a tbsp of Chinese cooking wine, 2 tsp of sugar, a tsp of white pepper, and a tsb of salt. Keep stewing on low heat for another hour.
6. Strain the broth into a container. After stewing, you should have about 400 ml broth left. Put it in the fridge for at least 6 hours. Skin has a lot collagen, which dissolves in the water during stewing. When the temperature goes down, it turns into a jelly.
7. Carefully mince the jelly. Make sure there are not big chunks.
8. Set it aside.

MAKING THE FILLING

1. You can do this while the jelly is being formed in the fridge.

2. Use some white part of the spring onion and ginger to make a sauce. Blend them with 3 tablespoons of water. Strain it.
3. Pour the sauce into the ground pork.
4. Add white sugar,dark soy sauce, sesame oil, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.
5. Stir it until the pork absorbs all the sauce. Add the vegetables into the meat. And Combine them. You can switch it with other vegetables like water chestnut or radish.
6. Last step is to mix it with the minced jelly.

MAKE THE DUMPLING WRAPS:

1. You need about 200 g of high protein flour.

2. Add a 1/2 teaspoon of salt and mix it well.
3. Pour warm water in 3 parts.and mix the flour
4. Knead the dough until smooth.
5. Cover it and let it sit for 30 minutes.
6. Knead the dough again for 5-10 minutes, to squeeze the air out.
7. Cover it; let it sit for another 30 minutes.
8. Cut the dough in half. Roll and Pull it into a long even strip.
9. Cut it into small pieces. Turn it after every cut to get even pieces. Each one should be about 12 grams.
10. Sprinkle some flour in case they stick to each other.
11. Flatten them with your hand.
12. Roll it into a small round wrapper with thick middle and thin edge. The size should be about 8-10cm long across.

CLOSE THE DUMPLINGS:

1. This is the most important step to make them look great.

2. Take a wrap and put enough meat so it’s almost full. I put a little bit more than a tbsp.
3. Lift one part of the edge and pinch it to make a pleat. Continue all the way around.
4. At the end, pinch it together to close the dumpling.
5. Normally, each dumpling should have 10-12 pleats in total. Don’t worry too much about this your first time- it will take some practice to make it look perfect.

STEAM: (YOU SHOULD DO THIS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE AFTER CLOSING THE DUMPLINGS)

1. Put parchment paper in the steamer

2. Leave some space between the xiao long bao,
3. Bring the water to a boil, then put the steamer in and let it steam it for 5 minutes on high heat.

DIPPING SAUCE:

1. Mix the shredded fresh ginger, white vinegar and soy sauce