Taya Starling

I have a dream.  A dream very much unlike Martin Luther King Jr’s dream.  A dream much more along the lines of Jiro’s dreams.  I dream of food.  All the damn time.  Seriously, when I’m stuck in traffic, when I’m in between scenes at work, when I’m looking at a menu, when I’m at the market, when I’m in bed and can’t sleep…. I dream of food (among many other things but this one keeps my stomach up and growling at night).  One of my foodie dreams has always been to learn the art of making dim sum.  I love dim sum- it’s like a big Asian tea party with steamed dumplings and fried bitesize dishes instead of crustless sandwiches and tea cakes; not that i don’t love my english tea parties.

Anyway, I made it a point to add “Cook: dim sum & bao” to my “Summer To Do List” and golly gosh doggone it I can finally cross that off my list!

One fine weekday, I was up and out early with my Mom, Aunty, & Cousin to the local market where we were going to meet up with Uncle Noodle for a little lesson in dim sum.  I had no idea what was in store.  I can’t break down the recipes or give you any secrets, because indeed I learned many from his personal collection of experience… but I will tell you that dim sum is not as easy as I thought.  Seriously it should cost WAY MORE THAN IT DOES!

 First we pulled all the ingredients together to see what we were getting into.  Uncle explained the differences between different types of flour and emphasized the importance of two things when cooking- the quality of your ingredients and the cleanliness of your workspace.Next we got down to business measuring out everything we would be using.
 Uncle put me in charge of the charsui pork which we made from scratch by marinating the pork with a mixture of sauces and fresh spices following Uncle’s private recipe.  Next we mixed together the ingredients for the bao dough.  I LOVE bao.  Really, between the magical quality and texture of the dough and the versatility of fillings and uses, what’s not to love? PS check out his industrial dough mixer- i need one of those!!!
Uncle then explained the lengthy procedure that comes with his bao dough process- this is not your average mix everything tougher and let it sit bread…. this is days of the bread and its natural bacterials doing it thing in private before you break off a piece and work it into a new piece then keep working that old piece for days on days! For time’s sake, Uncle pre-prepared another batch which we broke off and combined into the new batch helping to achieve that ideal bao consistency.The bao dough then needs to be kneaded and worked and worked again until it reacts properly to a good poking.  Seriously.  This is some strict culinary terminology and technique here.  No giggling allowed. While my Aunty got busy with the dough, I got busy on the stove cooking up our marinated charsui pork to a nice tender texture and that gorgeous signature red color.Once that was done and we were waiting for it to cool, Uncle taught me how to make his famous ground pork & shrimp wantons.  I eat these bad boys by the bowl full.  They’re just SO GOOOOOOD.He even taught me is little folding technique- I finally learned how he managed to fit so much filling in one little wanton wrapper! He is nothing short of a culinary magician in my book.

 In the meantime, the char sui was ready to get sliced up.  And we were ready for a lunch break while we let the dough set. These egg noodles with his homemade wantons and char sui pork is honestly one of my favorite dishes on earth.  I don’t know if it’s because I can taste all the love and care that goes into his food or what, but seriously for something so simple, it’s incredible. After a bowl or two (or three) of noodles, the dough was nice and set and ready for us to get to work.  Check out the extreme level of concentration on my face.  Those little baos are no easy feat.   Each bao starts with a little pinch of dough which is measured for consistency then rolled into a small ball.The ball is then flattened out with extra care to the edges which are pulled and flattened an additional centimeter as that is where the dough will be pulled together to cover the filling.
We turned into a little bao factory pretty quickly working as a mini dim sum assembly line.
Look how adorable these little baos turn out before being steamed!
Every bao gets a little piece of paper on the bottom (closed side down) and eventually as the bao expands in the steamer, that paper disappears under the size of the fully grown bao.Finally we started putting batches in the steamer for 8 minutes (since the dough doesn’t need long to cook and the filling is already cooked) and then voila! Yummy yummy little char sui baos! 
Here’s uncle pointing out which ones are pretty close to perfect (there weren’t many haha) and which ones where too full of filling or not wrapped tightly…. whoops!Enjoying the fruits of our labor- pretty much the whole reason we spent all morning making dim sum- SO WE CAN EAT.
Uncle was also nice enough to teach me how to make another one of my favorite dim sum dishes- suimai which is a wanton wrapper filled with ground pork and shrimp.  I didn’t imagine these would be very difficult to make and they weren’t really once you got the hang of the way to hold the wrapper while filling it and shaping it with opposite hands.  Have i mentioned that dim sum should be way more expensive than it is?!

Little bamboo baskets filled and then into the steamer they go!All in all it was an incredible morning.  The art of dim sum is no joke.  It requires a deep knowledge of dough, multiple ways to handle a wanton wrapper, various filling options, and most of all self restraint so you don’t eat everything you’ve just made after all the hard work you’ve put in! So much more fun than I thought it would be- I’m especially happy my Aunty & cousin could join us because cooking isn’t really cooking to me unless you’re sharing it with special people.The next time you eat dim sum I hope you think about all the hard work that went in to each morsel of goodness!