Soup Dumplings

Imagine a fat, round, pale dumpling, glistening on a bamboo steamer amidst wilted greenery. You pick one up, bite it, and there is a meatball surrounded by lovely, salty broth. In one morsel, you have dough, meatballs, and soup. You've just had a soup dumpling.

My son introduced us to soup dumplings at a place called Joe's Shanghai on a narrow street in New York's Chinatown. They've become a key feature of any trip to New York now; I've never seen them anywhere else.

The trick to making them without having the broth melt out is gelatin. When chilled, the broth is gelatinized, only to become a rich, silky broth when gently steamed. That bit of ingenuity makes for a tricky-to-eat burst of oxymoronic exotic comfort food.

If you're ever in New York, visit Joe's Shanghai. Elsewhere, they may appear as "Xiao Long Bao", though their quality may vary.