Ba-wan (meat dumpling)

What it is

A round dumpling about 6 to 8 cm across with a chewy, jelly-like, see-through wrapper. The filling is usually pork, bamboo shoots and shiitake, though it varies by region, and it comes in a sweet and savoury sauce. In Tainan the favourite is a steamed version filled with shrimp and pork.

Where it comes from

Wikipedia, citing the Taipei Times, says ba-wan are believed to have been first made in Beidou, Changhua County, by a scribe named Fan Wan-chu, as relief food after floods in 1898. The wrapper was traditionally pure sweet potato starch, a common preserved product when sweet potato was the main crop. The city tourism site says one Tainan family of shrimp ba-wan makers traces its line back to a stall at Kangle Market around 1950.

How it is made

The starch dough is wrapped around the filling and steamed. Some regions then deep-fry it for a crisp skin or keep it warm in gently heated oil. Modern wrappers often mix sweet potato starch with cornstarch and rice flour, and Fengshan's small ones use an indica rice batter.

How to eat it

A snack or light meal at any time of day. Shian Jeng in Tainan suggests a touch of mustard and a bowl of sishen soup or shiitake pork soup. In Fengshan, customers often order the bite-sized ones a dozen at a time, with soup.

In Kaohsiung

Tainan sorts its ba-wan into three kinds: steamed ones with chunks of pork, shrimp ba-wan with braised pork and fresh shrimp, and a small fried original with a thicker skin. In Kaohsiung, a stretch of Fengshan is known as 'ba-wan street', where the Li family shop wraps and steams tiny ones to order.