steamed small meat buns, Shanghai style

Every once in a while, it's fun to go back to an old recipe you haven't made in some time, just to see if your chops have improved. Back in the day, when we were just wee fledgeling foodies, the dish we'd bring out when we really wanted to impress someone came from the "China the Beautiful" cookbook. Steamed small meat buns, while having the added bonus of a kickass name, seemed pretty advanced to us back then. The recipe involves several steps of preparation and assembly, and requires a bit of organization to execute properly. It generally elicited a satisfying chorus of oohs and aahhs from guests, except for that one time our friend Jeannette busted us out for serving Safeway brand duck sauce. D'oh!

assembled and ready to be steamed

Well, I'm tickled to say, we made this dish again recently, and were pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to pull off! I actually made it nearly singlehandedly while Mark was preparing another dish. OK, we cheated a bit by using store-bought wonton wrappers, rather than making the dough from scratch. But the resulting dish was just as oohh-and-ahh-worthy as ever!

the finished product

Shiny and aromatic and fresh from the steamer, the biggest challenge is to wait until these little beauties are cool enough to eat without burning your fingers! This time around, Mark mixed together some soy sauce, sesame oil, and pepper flakes for a tasty dipping sauce. No Safeway duck sauce... we've learned our lesson there!

This dish is from the China the Beautiful Cookbook.

Hop on over to Wanderlust & Lipstick's WanderFood Wednesday for more mouth-watering pics.

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