Chicken Broth Buns

Chicken Broth Buns

　　The chicken broth buns are the star item here. The outer wrapper is thin, crispy, and fragrant, while the inside is bursting with rich chicken juice—just one bite fills your mouth with savory oiliness. Dishes like noodles, rice vermicelli, and rice bowls are also of good quality and generously portioned. Though the place is small, the flavor is so good that it’s always packed—with twenty people in a space under ten square meters being totally normal, and seats are basically a free-for-all.

Recipe:

1. Filling: The filling consists of two parts: chicken broth jelly and minced meat.

Chicken Broth Jelly: a. Wash the chicken feet, blanch them, then rinse off any scum. Add plenty of water along with scallions, ginger, and cooking wine, and simmer until the chicken becomes tender and falls off the bone (bring to a boil over high heat, then simmer over low heat for about an hour). b. Remove the scallions and ginger, add the deboned chicken feet back into the broth, season with salt, and simmer over high heat for another 10 minutes or so. c. Pour into a container, let cool, then refrigerate overnight.

Minced Meat: Combine ground meat (30% fat, 70% lean) with a small amount of soy sauce, salt, pepper, Sichuan peppercorn powder, ginger powder, and sesame oil. Mix well, then gradually add scallion-ginger water (finely chopped scallions and ginger soaked in cold water until flavorful) in several batches, stirring in one direction until the mixture becomes elastic.

Dice an amount of chicken broth jelly equal to the amount of minced meat and mix it into the meat. The filling is now complete.

2. Bun Dough: Add water to flour (about 300g, enough to make 25–30 small buns) and stir with chopsticks until it forms a flaky texture. Then start kneading—knead vigorously and thoroughly. Once kneaded, cover with a damp cloth and let rest for 30 minutes. The next steps are naturally dividing the dough, rolling out the wrappers, and assembling the buns.

3. Line the steamer basket with a cloth, place the assembled buns inside, and let them rest in the steamer for another 10 minutes before turning on the heat. Steam over boiling water for 15 minutes, then remove, plate, and serve.