EMILY KWONG, HOST:
Lunar New Year begins this week, and for many families, it's a tradition to make and fold dumplings. I've been eating dumplings my whole life, but this year, I wanted to challenge myself to make one of the most iconic dumplings of all, the xiaolongbao, or soup dumpling - these delectable, intricately wrapped pouches filled with meat and broth that you puncture with your teeth to sip. And to learn the secret behind xiaolongbao, we headed to Washington D.C.'s Chinatown.
Hi.
TIM MA: Hi. How's it going?
KWONG: Tucked away on a side street just two blocks from the National Mall is one of the locations of Lucky Danger, the restaurant founded and owned by Chef Tim Ma. Over his career, many of Tim's menus have paid homage to his roots.
MA: One of the family dishes is a chicken agar salad. So, like, I had dishes like that and, like, pork and chive dumplings and stuff like that.
KWONG: Every weekend as a kid, Tim's family would venture to his grandparents' house to wrap dumplings.
MA: It's just something to do while you're all passing stories around, right?
KWONG: Right.
MA: So I remember my grandma used to just, like, chain-smoke cigarettes while we made dumplings and then tell us all these stories.
KWONG: So who taught you how to fold?
MA: Like, it'd be like everyone. And we'd all, you know, compete to, like, make the prettiest dumpling.
KWONG: Tim's life revolved around the restaurant industry. His uncle owned Paul Mas China Kitchen, a legendary eatery in Yorktown Heights, New York. And at one point, his parents owned a restaurant in Arkansas called Bamboo Gardens. Tim himself has opened and operated over 20 restaurants. But before he ever picked up a knife, he was an electrical engineer.
MA: I am the quintessential American Chinese story, right? So this is true for a lot of Chinese immigrants. Their parents immigrated here. They opened restaurants 'cause that's what they knew how to do. They worked very hard in the restaurant industry so that their kids can go to become lawyers, doctors, engineers.
KWONG: Yeah.
MA: And so I fulfilled that American dream. Like, all my cousins are lawyers. I was an engineer. And then I threw it all away and threw away my parents' dream and chased my dream (laughter).
KWONG: So Tim, your family has really deep restaurant roots. I mean, your parents owned a restaurant for a while. Your uncle had a restaurant.
MA: Yeah.
KWONG: And these were more than restaurants.
MA: Yeah.
KWONG: They were gathering places for Chinese community...
MA: Yeah.
KWONG: ...In their time.
MA: For one, it was a gathering place for our family. Every single one of my cousins worked in the restaurant. It's always where we had celebrations. It's just funny how much of our family just circled that restaurant all the time.
KWONG: You're making me think about how the center of gravity for the Chinese family, for a lot of families, a lot of immigrant families, is really food.
MA: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
KWONG: Like, it is the convening point. All my family reunions growing up on my dad's side were at restaurants.
MA: Yeah.
KWONG: It was never at someone's house. It was always at some, like, banquet hall in Flushing.
MA: Like a firehouse or, yeah, a banquet hall...
KWONG: Yeah.
MA: ...Or a restaurant. Yeah. Exactly.
KWONG: And we'd take up three or four tables, and there'd be a lazy Susan.
MA: Yep.
KWONG: And my relatives would talk about how tall I had gotten.
MA: (Laughter).
KWONG: And why don't I know Chinese?
MA: Yeah. Yeah.
KWONG: But the food was the point to pull everyone together.
MA: The food's always the common ground. When I was 7, we moved from Arkansas to New York to, like, near my uncle's restaurant because my uncle's restaurant was, like, the centerpiece of the family. My grandparents lived, like, right down the street from the restaurant, and we were waiting for them to pass. And so they thought they were going to pass that year, so we immediately moved up to New York, and then they never died. And so (laughter) like...
KWONG: The food kept them alive.
MA: Yeah, something kept them alive. And so...
KWONG: And food is exactly how Tim hopes to infuse life back into D.C.'s Chinatown community. The historic district has dwindled, and this is happening in a lot of Chinatowns all over the country. Rising costs push family-owned businesses out, and pillars of the community leave. Tim wants to reverse that.
MA: So as I'm speaking to these old Chinatown families, they're just like, if somebody goes and opens a really good restaurant on H Street, like, Chinatown will come back. Other people will follow.
KWONG: Wow. It's almost like a restaurant is like a message.
MA: Yeah.
KWONG: It's like a stake in the ground.
MA: Yeah.
KWONG: Like, we're here.
MA: Yeah.
KWONG: The community can gather here again now...
MA: Right.
KWONG: ...Because there is, like, a safe place...
MA: Yep.
KWONG: ...For food and gathering. I feel like - I mean, are you experiencing this at all - that, like, a younger - like, our generation is picking up traditions that our parents kind of...
MA: And making it...
KWONG: ...Abandoned and making it our own?
MA: Yeah, making it our own. Yeah, for sure.
KWONG: Like, my dad did not fold dumplings.
MA: That's really not...
KWONG: That is not something he carried on from his grandmother.
MA: Yeah.
KWONG: But now here I am talking to you, wanting to fold dumplings...
MA: Yeah. It's a...
KWONG: ...As, like, a second generation, like, mixed Chinese American. So...
MA: My theory on that is that, like, our parents were immigrants, and we were born here in America, so they really wanted us to be American. So I think subconsciously, to them, American culture - right? - it was like a scene from a movie. My thought was that they were doing that so that if we don't have an accent, we know American culture, they might look past this and not bully us anymore.
KWONG: Past this - like, your face.
MA: Yeah, past us looking Chinese, looking different. So fast-forward to, like, high school. I have no accent. I don't speak Chinese. I know - I'm more American than I am Chinese. My mom would take me to the Lunar New Year celebrations and introduce me to the other people as my American son, Timmy.
KWONG: Wow.
MA: That's why I think so many of us in this generation are going back to the traditions. And so we're rediscovering them. And that's my theory, at least...
KWONG: Yeah.
MA: ....For some of the stuff, like, folding dumplings, mahjong. Like...
KWONG: Yeah.
MA: ...We just didn't experience it growing up because our parents had to make that decision so that we can assimilate and not go through, like, all these, like - literally, like, really racist things that happen to us just for looking different.
KWONG: Yeah. It's more of, like, a recovery.
MA: Yeah. It's therapy.
KWONG: Yeah.
MA: It's trauma therapy.
KWONG: Yeah. My lack of knowing how to fold dumplings is what brought me here...
MA: Yeah.
KWONG: ...More than my wanting to continue on a tradition that I've - that's...
MA: Yeah.
KWONG: ...Been passed down. It's actually being picked up anew.
MA: Yeah. Yeah.
KWONG: So with that, want to go fold?
MA: Yeah. Let's go fold some dumplings.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
KWONG: What ingredients are needed for perfect soup dumplings?
MA: The dough itself is just flour and water, and the filling, it's just ground pork, aromatics, but the magic is actually in the aspic, which is the gelatinized stock, essentially.
KWONG: The aspic.
MA: And then when you steam it, the gelatinized stock turns into soup. The soup part is the magic, I would say...
KWONG: Yeah.
MA: ...Because everybody's like, how do you get the soup in the dumpling? That's the magic of that. The folding is an art.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MA: So take the wrapper and just get a little bit of the filling.
(SOUNDBITE OF CRINKLING)
MA: And then the hard part is making these pleats.
KWONG: You're kind of, like, bunching. You're like, accordioning (ph)...
MA: Yeah. Accordioning.
KWONG: ...The dough...
MA: Yeah.
KWONG: ...Gathering it almost like the strings of a purse...
MA: Yes.
KWONG: ...Of coins, except the coins are the pork. Yummy. Pork is very lucky for Lunar New Year, right?
MA: Yes.
KWONG: We love to eat pork because it's like...
MA: You want long noodles...
KWONG: Long noodles.
MA: ...Head-to-tail fish, dumplings.
KWONG: Did your family argue over who would eat the eye...
MA: No.
KWONG: ...Of the fish?
MA: No (laughter). It was always my cousin 'cause he was, like - you know, he was more Chinese than any of us, I guess.
KWONG: He would eat the eye?
MA: Yeah. He would, like, jump for it.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MA: See it. Again, I'm not the best at this (laughter). This was a terrible one.
KWONG: Whoa. Is this...
MA: That looks great.
KWONG: ...I feel like I smashed it together.
MA: Oh, my God. This was where my mom's like, you have to have small hands to do this. And you're supposed to get, like, 18 folds.
KWONG: Eighteen folds.
MA: Yes. Yeah. It's crazy. So that was, like - what? - like, maybe 10 at the most.
KWONG: See, my dumpling is like - I am just smashing it. It's almost like I stapled the dumpling together.
MA: (Laughter).
KWONG: But you...
After several more scoops of pork and a lot more smashed and pinched folds - way less than 18 - but still, I was finally getting somewhere.
Oh.
MA: Yeah (laughter).
KWONG: That looks great.
MA: Yeah. That looks like...
KWONG: That literally - ah. That's a soup dumpling.
MA: That looks great.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
KWONG: Next, we head to the kitchen to cook our dumplings.
(SOUNDBITE OF KITCHEN APPLIANCE RUNNING)
KWONG: Tim pulls out a bamboo steamer, drops it into a wok, adds a little water.
MA: And we're cooking.
KWONG: Nine minutes later...
(SOUNDBITE OF TIMER BEEPING)
KWONG: ...Dipping sauce is poured. The moment of truth.
Mmm. The pork's really good. Tim...
MA: Wow.
KWONG: ...Well done. I know this is mine...
MA: (Laughter).
KWONG: ...Because it looks like I took a stapler to a top of a dumpling. But I'm going to - Tim, I promise you, I'm going to keep practicing...
MA: Yeah. Yeah.
KWONG: ...And not give up.
MA: That was a great - your last one was great with the little...
KWONG: Thank you.
MA: ...The vent at the top.
KWONG: Here in the district, community organizations have lined up almost two weeks of events to celebrate the new year. There will be arts and crafts, lion dancing, a parade and, of course, plenty of dumplings.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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