Bon Appétit joins Lucas Sin in Chengdu, the capital of China’s Sichuan Province, to try some of the city’s favorite dumplings. Auntie’s Private Dumplings are made fresh each day in the owner’s home kitchen, served from the living room, and loved by the locals.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Welcome to Chengdu.
00:07Here we are in the capital of Sichuan.
00:08We're in a little district, a little neighborhood called Niushikou that is known oddly for its
00:14hidden pockets of deliciousness.
00:15One of these places is called Auntie's Private Dumplings, and we're in the middle of a truly
00:20residential district.
00:21But you'll see right there, that's the clue we're looking for.
00:24It says mysterious unit.
00:27That's the clue.
00:29Ayi, ni hao, ye jie ni hao, zhao shang hao.
00:35Welcome to Auntie's Private Dumplings.
00:37This is Auntie's living room.
00:39If you come to the back, this is actually the fridge that she works out of, and the
00:43kitchen itself.
00:46A home kitchen.
00:47Two stoves, one wok, one for boiling noodles and dumplings.
00:51Those little bowls, so iconic.
00:53She has two staff, but most of the day-to-day is mom and dad, because they actually live
01:01here.
01:02That's their bathroom, and that's their bedroom.
01:06It almost feels a little bit intrusive that we're shooting here in somebody's home.
01:11After she left her dumpling job at a very, very prominent dumpling spot, she's thought
01:15to herself, why not just make dumplings at home and sell them to people?
01:18The pork here is lean pork with a little bit of iced water.
01:23One of the Sichuan techniques is to soak things like ginger inside of water, which helps get
01:28rid of a little bit of the gaminess of the pork itself.
01:30You can see how smooth that final filling is.
01:34You see that little bit of an opening?
01:37You learn how to make dumplings from anywhere else, and they'll say, you must keep all of
01:41the sides crimped.
01:42You must keep that whole thing intact.
01:44That's not the case here.
01:45The deliciousness of this dumpling is the interaction of the dumpling with the sauce,
01:49and you want that sauce to go inside of the dumpling.
01:52You want that sauce to soak inside of this relatively soft skin.
01:55It's almost less of a crimped dumpling and more of a cooked sandwich, maybe, something
02:00like this.
02:01These two aunties are making a huge amount of dumplings throughout the day.
02:05Auntie Ye, the owner of the shop, has been here for 21 years.
02:10Here comes the making of the filling.
02:11First step first, smash the ginger with the side of the cleaver to get that flavor out.
02:18But that's the ginger that's going to get rid of the gaminess inside of that pork.
02:21She's rubbing salt directly into the ginger so that the salt draws out that ginger juice,
02:26draws out that moisture.
02:28That's the juice that's going to lend moisture to the pork.
02:30The lean pork goes into the bowl.
02:33The combination of cuts in between the loin and the shoulder.
02:38A generous amount of table salt into the pork.
02:41The key to the deliciousness of the filling here is the manipulation of texture.
02:45She's really squeezing that pork.
02:47As she's agitating this pork, the meat will slowly, slowly get tackier.
02:51It will get, in some ways, a little bit rubbery, but it will become the clean, porky glue that
02:58is needed for that filling to keep the wrapper together.
03:01With hand as filter, the ginger water goes in.
03:05That pork, like a sponge, is going to soak up that ginger water.
03:08As she's moving, you can see those protein strands extending.
03:11You can see little spiky strands coming apart.
03:14Auntie says the filling must be mixed in one direction.
03:18And this is actually a little bit of intergenerational knowledge that is shared in many, many different
03:23parts of China.
03:24The idea here, obviously, is that she wants to extend those protein strands as long as
03:28possible.
03:29If you're mixing in two directions, you end up risking breaking those strands of protein.
03:34Something that's smooth might not be so appealing in many other contexts, but in the dumpling
03:38context, where it's sandwiched between dough, it makes all the sense in the world.
03:44There's no sesame oil.
03:45There's no garlic.
03:46There's no cabbage.
03:47It is just an expression of pork in its flavor and its texture.
03:51Auntie's making me my bowl of dumplings.
03:53Ten of them go into the pot.
03:54It's at a rolling boil.
03:56She's agitating it, constantly keeping it moving for the first couple of seconds to
04:01make sure that it doesn't stick to the bottom.
04:04When the starch granules begin to absorb that water, you have to make sure that it's moving
04:08at a rolling boil so that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot.
04:11Because they're cooking in the same pot of water and the dumpling is not totally filled,
04:16some of that pork liquid that leaches out is going to flavor the water.
04:20So they're making a very gentle pork broth, almost, in which they're going to cook the
04:24subsequent dumplings.
04:25I know we're just talking about boiling dumplings here, but there is a little bit of technique
04:29and there is attention to detail to what she's doing right now.
04:32To keep the timing of the cooking of the dumplings correct, she adds a little bit of
04:36water at a time.
04:38My grandma taught me how to make dumplings in the exact same way.
04:41After you add the dumplings, water comes to a boil, add a little bit of cold water, and
04:45that brings the temperature down again.
04:47And theoretically, you're supposed to do this three times in order to get the dumplings
04:50to fully cook.
04:51Of course, now having been a chef for a little while, the cooking time of that dumpling is
04:56totally dependent on how much hot water there actually is, how much cold water there actually
05:00is.
05:01And the fact of the matter is that this is a reliable, folk way of keeping time of cooking
05:06dumplings.
05:07She's looking for the skin to be shiny, and she wants the edges of that skin to be a little
05:11bit translucent.
05:12That is the sign of starch fully gelatinizing.
05:16She's getting rid of the water, draining it really well, back and forth, and here comes
05:20the seasoning.
05:21First, the thickened sweetened soy sauce, second, the minced garlic, third, chili crisp.
05:28Chili oil.
05:42Okay, here's the thing with zhong shui jiao.
05:44At the minimum, three layers of flavor in terms of the sauce.
05:47Number one is the chili oil.
05:50This chili crisp, she says it's cooked at about 300 degrees.
05:53There is, at the minimum, chili flakes, sesame seeds.
05:57Really important to not forget where zhong shui jiao is actually the garlic and the minced
06:01raw garlic.
06:02Some places like to have minced garlic with a little bit of grapeseed oil.
06:06Here it's water.
06:07On the bottom is the fu zhi jiang you, the modified soy sauce.
06:10Everyone that makes this dumpling has their own secret recipe, but usually it's something
06:14to the effect of slab sugar, brown sugar, the soy sauce, usually some sort of red soy sauce
06:21or slightly sweetened soy sauce, darker in color, and then it's fortified with a huge
06:26amount of warming Sichuan spices, Sichuan peppercorn, cardamom, long pepper, fennel,
06:33so on and so forth.
06:34It really depends on the store, but this is one of the things that she really insisted
06:39we don't get the recipe or we don't film.
06:42I am a huge fan of this interactive element of bringing the flavors all together.
06:53Stupid delicious.
07:04So good.
07:05Filling is just like a meatball.
07:07It holds the whole thing together.
07:09A little bit of gentle sweetness.
07:11That chili, it's spicy, but it's not deadening.
07:15It's not scorching.
07:16It's a small pop of brightness.
07:22Oil on the outside of the skin makes the whole dumpling so slippery.
07:26It goes down so easy.
07:27You see, the skin is still a little bit open after it boils, and so that sauce goes inside
07:32of the dumpling.
07:34It's infectious.
07:35This thing is really just, just so good.
07:42And again, just like everything else in Chengdu snack culture, small bowl, you can pop these
07:49all day long.
07:50She opens in the morning.
07:51Some people come for breakfast, but she's open all day.
07:54So people come for lunch.
07:55People come for the snack in the afternoon.
07:56The smoothness of the dumpling skin is mimicked by the smoothness of the meat in the middle
08:01itself.
08:02Pop this in.
08:03It's just one slippery bite.
08:08Just one cohesive pop of spice, sweet, savory, salty.
08:15This might be one of the first times we've shot and I've finished the entire portion
08:21of something the first time it hits the table.
08:27It also is like eating at your auntie's house, watch a little bit of television, talk a little
08:33smack.
08:34Bueno.
08:35That lingering sweetness, that lingering garlic, lingering spice.
08:43Everything that we ate stays with you till the end.
08:46Good stuff.
08:48That was delicious hongyou sui jiao, also called zhong sui jiao.
08:51This dish was invented maybe 150 years ago by a guy by the last name of Zhong.
08:56And chef here is the legacy.
08:58She came from that restaurant, that's where she trained, and now she's really made it
09:02her own by bringing this delicious dish into her own home.
09:05I'm just going to say bye to chef real quick.
09:07We're leaving now.
09:09No need to thank me.
09:10Come at any time.
09:11If you like hongyou, spicy, sour, spicy, you can come.
09:13No need to thank me.
09:14On to the next.