Soup dumplings are a delicious and iconic Chinese dish consisting of a savory blend of meat and/or vegetables marinating in soup, all contained within a chewy wrapper to form a little package of aromatic flavor. However, if you’re a newbie to eating soup dumplings, there are a variety of issues you can run into while making your way to Dumpling Town- you can burn your tongue on the boiling soup within the dumpling, or spill the savory broth all over your front, or rip the wrapper while removing it from the steamer and lose a key element of texture and flavor to this amazing dish… but don’t worry! I have several tips and guidelines to ensure that your experience trying these delectable dumplings goes as smoothly as possible!
First of all, keep in mind that timing is crucial when it comes to enjoying this dish. The dumplings will be piping hot when they arrive at the table. This means that the broth within will be searing, so if you immediately bite into it, you will get a mouthful of boiling soup (and probably some pretty nasty burns). However, the soup dumplings’ wrappers get tackier as they cool, so if you let them sit for too long, there is almost a 100% chance they will rip when you try to remove them, and you will lose the soup in the dumplings as it drains into the bottom of the steamer. However, it is possible for seasoned soup dumpling experts (such as myself) to extract cooled dumplings from the steamer, but it takes skill and patience- like disarming a delicious bomb. In order to transfer a dumpling from the steamer, carefully grip the pleated tip of the dumpling and lift it slowly. As soon as the bottom of the dumpling is no longer touching the steamer, immediately place it into your soup spoon to minimize your chances of ripping the wrapper by accident.
There is a great comic by cartoonist Robert Zimmerman titled “Soup Dumplings: A Survival Guide” that details the process of eating soup dumplings plastered to the front of Joe’s Shanghai, my favorite restaurant to eat soup dumplings at that you can read my review of in my post “Joe Shanghai’s Famous Soup Dumplings”.
Text: Soup Dumplings: They’re a danger to Humanity! But this doesn’t have to happen to you! 
(Step 1) Text: Gently lift the dumpling and place it on your spoon. 
(Step 2) Text: The all-important Nibble! This releases the soup in to the spoon. 
(Step 3) Text: The Dumpling is now safe for eating! Follow up with the soup.
Most restaurants also provide a small condiment dish containing julienned ginger strips marinating in a mixture of soy sauce and vinegar for dipping. If you would like to use the sauce, I would add a step between steps two and three. Spoon some of the sauce from the condiment dish provided into the hole that you bit out of the dumpling. This allows the flavor of the dipping sauce to soak into the meat within: if you simply dipped the outside of the dumpling into the sauce, it would just drip off.
Soup dumplings are a delicious dish, and I hope these tips help make your experience as enjoyable as possible!
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