Shanghainese Soup Dumplings

One of my coworkers, who is Shanghainese, introduced me to soup dumplings about 6 months ago. Now I am totally addicted to them. Soup dumplings, which originate from Shanghai, are essentially meat dumplings filled with hot, delicious soup inside. The dipping sauce of choice is black Chinese vinegar with shredded raw ginger.

So how does the soup get inside the dumpling? Well, the meat filling is mixed with a soup base and frozen for a couple of hours. That enables the soup base and filling to solidify and congeal together. The frozen mixture is then scrapped with a spoon and (securely) encased in wonton wrappers, and steamed to perfection. Because there is soup/liquid in the dumplings, they are made-to-order and have to be consumed immediately. Otherwise, the wonton wrappers will absorb the soup inside and turn doughy instead of light and soupy.