Making Dumplings for 125 with Pablo

Tomorrow my friend Holly is having a big 50th birthday party for her fiancé Bob. Among the wide array of food that will be served are a number of dumplings prepared straight out of my book. Guests number around 125, Elvis and Bobby Darin impersonators are coming from Las Vegas, and there’s a musical review/roast of Bob. Fork and Spoon Event Productions in San Francisco is catering the party, and I offered to give them some guidance on how to make the Asian dumplings.

In advance, I talked to Chef Garrett Cullen and our plan was that Fork and Spoon would prepare the fillings and doughs and I would come to offer tips on rolling out dough, shaping the dumplings and cooking them. This morning I arrived at 10:30 and Garett assigned Pablo, one of their lead cooks, to work with me. We spent a good five hours working by the dishwashing station and chatting in Spanglish. Pablo is from Mexico and remarkably curious and facile with dough. He caught on fast as we exchanged life stories, discussed the economy, and political situations in Mexico, the U.S. and Vietnam. Comparing dumplings to tamale making, he even shared his mom's cooking tips.

Four of my Asian dumplings are on the menu tomorrow -- baked char siu bao, vegetarian crystal dumplings, pork and shrimp gyoza, and beef and raisin empanadas. Pablo mastered folding them them all today, including the complicated closed satchel for bao and pleated crescent for pot stickers. What are his secrets? Here’s what Pablo told me:

Mexican people can do many things. We come to this country to make better lives for ourselves. We will do any work and we learn fast. It’s just work for us. I listen, watch, and then practice.

At first, Pablo worked slowly to hone his handiwork, but picked up the pace to nearly match mine. His bao were nearly perfect, though he modestly described them to Garret as being only mas or menos.

Buy the time I left at 4pm, he had trained a colleague to work the Asian dowel rolling pin to roll out wrappers, and to fill and shape dumplings. Pablo formed his own mini assembly line. He even thought of putting carnitas in bao for a Chino-Mexicano take.  I've been teaching lots of people to make dumplings recently and have to admit that Pablo's at the top of his class.

Watch out world, here comes Pablo, un nuevo maestro de los dumplings!

Comments

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What fun, and it shows that it only takes a good dumpling to speak worlds across cultures.

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Brava, Andrea! I love what Pablo said about Mexicans coming to this country and what they have as a common goal--were that more people lucky enough to have been born/raised in the U.S. as hard-working and dedicated to raise their socio-economic status. Bravo, Pablo!

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