Sheng Jian Bao (Pan-Fried Pork Buns)

Sheng jian bao — pan-fried buns — are one of Shanghai's most distinctive contributions to Chinese breakfast and street food culture. They occupy a culinary position alongside xiaolongbao as the two items most associated with Shanghai food, but they are a fundamentally different eating experience: larger, sturdier, more filling, and cooked by a method that produces a contrast between the crispy bottom and the soft, doughy top.

The wrapper uses leavened dough — the same enriched yeasted wheat dough used for regular steamed bao — rather than the thin unleavened pasta-type skin of xiaolongbao. This means sheng jian bao have a noticeably bready, fluffy quality to the upper portions of the bun that is quite different from the silky, almost translucent wrapper of a soup dumpling. The dough is allowed to prove before filling, and the resulting bun is generous in size — roughly the diameter of a golf ball when cooked.

The filling is similar in concept to xiaolongbao: minced pork mixed with a set aspic (skin-and-bone stock reduced and chilled until it gels), plus ginger, scallion, soy sauce, sesame oil, and Shaoxing wine. When the bun is cooked, the aspic melts into hot broth that accumulates inside the wrapper. There is less soup than in a xiaolongbao, but enough to produce a significant scalding risk if the bun is bitten too forcefully.

Cooking takes place in a large, heavy flat-bottomed pan or wok. The buns are arranged close together, pleated-side up, in oil, and the pan is covered. Water is added partway through cooking to generate steam, which cooks the tops. The oil fries the bottoms until they are golden-brown and crisp, with a crust that audibly crunches. The buns are finished with sesame seeds and chopped scallion scattered across the tops, which stick to the slight surface moisture.

Eating technique: place the entire bun in the mouth in one go, or bite from the side gently and let broth flow into the mouth rather than onto the table. Order by the portion, typically four per serving.