Pan-Fried Pork Buns 生煎馒头

Pan-Fried Pork Buns (生煎馒头), usually shortened to shengjian, are small filled buns fried in a flat pan, a traditional snack of Suzhou (苏州), Shanghai and the wider Jiangnan (江南) region. The mantou in the name is a filled bun, and pork is the usual filling.

Where it comes from

The Suzhou Local Chronicles Office (苏州市地方志工作办公室) traces the bun back to the water-fried buns of Northern Song Bianliang (汴梁), today's Kaifeng (开封), a method that gentry and craftsmen from the Central Plains carried south after the Jin sacked the city in 1127. In the Ming and Qing periods, it says, Suzhou combined the fried buns of Lin'an (临安) with the soup-filled bun technique of Huaiyang (淮扬) cooking, and the Wuyuan Teahouse (吴苑茶馆) on Guanqian Street (观前街) sold them as a tea snack. The Republican-era Wu County gazetteer (吴县志) calls them the best known of teahouse snacks, thin-skinned and juicy, "为吴中特色" (a speciality of the Wu area). Chinese Wikipedia dates the bun's origin in Suzhou to the early 20th century, with a spread to other parts of Jiangsu and Zhejiang in the 1920s, and names the Wuyuan Teahouse, opened in 1911, as the best-known early Suzhou seller.

How it is made

The chronicles office describes the settled Suzhou style as a half-leavened or unleavened wrapper, a pork filling seasoned with sugar and given soup with pork-skin aspic, and pleats turned face down so the bun fries into a thick patterned base. Chinese Wikipedia gives the general method. The filling is pork shoulder about 70 percent lean, mixed with egg, salt, cooking wine, sesame oil, scallion and ginger, and the wrapper is dough raised with old starter. The tops are dipped in sesame seeds, and the buns fry in oil in a flat pan, sprinkled with water several times, until the base is golden and hard. The same article names Yaba Shengjian (哑巴生煎) and Da'a'er Shengjian (大阿二生煎铺) among Suzhou's well-known clear-water (清水生煎) shops today, a style made with leavened dough and no aspic.

How it is eaten

The finished bun is white with a crisp browned base and smells of sesame and scallion; the skin is both crisp and soft. In Suzhou the chronicles office pairs it with local small wontons (泡泡小馄饨) and describes it as a stopgap for audiences of Suzhou pingtan storytelling (苏州评弹) who missed a meal while listening in teahouses. Rice vinegar or Zhenjiang (镇江) vinegar is the usual dip, and eateries usually sell them by the portion of four.