Wuxi Meat-Stuffed Gluten Puffs 无锡油面筋塞肉

Wuxi Meat-Stuffed Gluten Puffs (无锡油面筋塞肉) are hollow balls of deep-fried wheat gluten filled with seasoned minced pork and braised, a traditional dish of Wuxi (无锡) in Jiangsu. It is also called Huishan lion's head (惠山狮子头), and Wikipedia names meat-stuffed gluten (肉酿面筋) as one of the representative traditional Wuxi dishes made with the gluten. It is built on Wuxi's fried gluten, known as qingshui oil gluten (清水油面筋), which Wikipedia lists with Huishan clay figurines and Wuxi soy-braised spare ribs as the city's three traditional products.

Ingredients

The puff starts as raw wheat gluten: flour and water with a little salt are worked into a dough and rinsed repeatedly in clean water, and the gluten left behind is rolled into small balls. Dropped into hot oil, the balls swell quickly into golden shells, crisp outside and loose inside. Wikipedia says the word qingshui (clear water) refers to the good-quality vegetable oil used, pressed from fresh rapeseed after the summer harvest, not to washing in water. Wuxi puffs fried this way are glossy and thin, and the article contrasts them with the heavier, doughier gluten often made in nearby Suzhou and Changzhou, which turns mushy in soup and pulls away from the meat when stuffed.

How it is made

A Wuxi recipe cited by Wikipedia pairs 250 grams of medium-sized gluten puffs with 500 grams of pork. The pork is chopped and mixed with salt, soy sauce, sugar, yellow wine and a little spring onion and ginger. A small hole is snipped in each puff and the filling pushed inside. The stuffed puffs go into boiling water seasoned with yellow wine, soy sauce, sugar, spring onion and ginger, cook over low heat for about 15 minutes, and are finished with a starch-thickened sauce and a few drops of sesame oil.

How it is eaten

Braised in soy sauce, the finished dish is a deep red with a rich flavour, combining meat with vegetarian gluten. A report from The Paper (澎湃新闻), carried by China News Service, describes it as a standing dish at the New Year's Eve dinner of Shanghai families with roots in Wuxi.