People who make Siu Long Bau are hardcore...

Speaking of dumplings, I found a site with a recipe for Siu Long Bau.

Did you know that you have to make ASPIC first??? And then the aspic is chopped up and mixed in with the filling, so when the dumpling is steamed, the aspic melts and there you get your beautiful soup inside a dumpling! But...damn! Aspic! As in, the stuff that horrified the heroine in the book "Julia and Julia: My year of cooking dangerously" - you've got to use pork hock to make that stuff. Yeaaaah, the feeeeet.

I was briefly interested, since I love Siu Long Bau, but if aspic's involved, that's way too hardcore. In case anyone else's interested, this is the site where I found the recipe:

http://mmm-yoso.typepad.com/mmmyoso/2006/04/the_xiao_long_b.html

Oh , here's another recipe, and this one doesn't require pork hock. Instead you boil pig skin so that the soup gelatinizes. That seems slightly less terrifying to me.

http://www.galaxylink.com.hk/~john/food/cooking/shanghai/xiaolongbao.htm