Book designer Betsy Stromberg at Ten Speed Press has worked nearly all of my cookbooks. She’s the quiet type but fierce in her creativity. She’s craft-oriented too. Over the years, Betsy has asked me a couple of questions about char siu bao, steamed Cantonese buns filled with barbecue pork. Their a personal favorite, she’s told me.
As a book designer, Betsy examines an author’s manuscript and figures out how to present it in a manner that informs and inspires. She has to pay attention to the recipe details themselves because she goes into the files and manipulates design elements to help things stand out. We collaborate on art direction and she’s present at the photo shoots. She goes the extra mile for me too. For The Banh Mi Handbook, Besty stayed up late on work nights to make the illustrations for the chapter openers. In other words, hers design efforts help me communicate my ideas well to cooks.
Betsy surprises me now and then. She recently posted the photo below of her homemade bao, crediting me and the Asian Dumplings book. Damn good pleating and shaping. I was quite happy and honored to be part of her dumpling journey. Betsy couldn’t have gotten that far without lots of practice.
Many people are intimidated by the bao shape. The ones at dim sum and Shanghai soup dumpling joints always look perfect. Then there are people who claim that there must be X number of pleats in a bao. Those people want to keep others out of the bao making scene.
The honest truth is that you just have to get the darn thing closed. The shape is akin to cinching up a satchel (think of a hobo bag). Once you master the closed satchel shape, you’ll experience its brilliance: lots of filling fits into the bao. But to get there takes lots of dumpling making sessions.
Below is "The Perfect Shanghai Soup Dumpling" video I taped with the Chinese chef at Shanghai Dumpling King is San Francisco. Watch his fingers move to get a sense of rapid fire closed satchel making. You can work up to that but know that he started honing his techniques decades ago.
The video below slows thing down quite a bit to help you along. Do note that this shape only works for wrappers that you make from scratch. There are recipes in the Asian Dumplings cookbook for you to uses (momos, xiao long bao soup dumplings, steamed and baked bao, panfried bao, Chinese chive dumplings, and I may have forgotten some others ones). Do not try this technique on purchased pot sticker or wontons as they are not moist enough to seal properly. That said, review the instructions in Asian Dumplings on how to roll out dumpling wrappers and watch the video. Those two things will bring you up to speed on where this video takes off.
I developed my dumpling making skills from watching people. I’m like a dumpling voyeur and have gotten some weird looks from the dumpling makers. After I watched, I would go home and practice. These videos are here so that you don’t have to put yourself in the kinds of awkward situations that I’ve found myself in. You’re way ahead of where I started.
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H NN
Do you have a recipe for a bahn bao? I usually use premixed flour packet from the Viet store but want to believe that I don't have to knead the dough for 30 consecutive minutes!
Andrea Nguyen
Oh my. No bueno. I use my dough recipe in the Asian Dumpling cookbook. Your library may have a copy. It comes together in the processor in no time. Here's what the book looks like:
https://amzn.to/2YMowvK