Mass production of dim sum

[Dejah]

Yes, you read the topic description correctly! This is going to be a week's undertaking with hopefully a crew of a dozen or more.

This all began with the major influx of Chinese permit workers sponsored by Maple Leaf hog processing plant. To help them adjust to Canadian life, my brother and I were asked to form the WestMan Chinese Association. Then, one thing led to another!

On January 31, Feb 1st. and 2nd, our city is holding it's 5th WinterFest with 13 countries hosting pavilions. This is the very first time for a Chinese pavilion as we now have enough volunteers! Six of the workers were chefs in China, and we've had several opportunities to taste their skills.

Each pavilion will feature food and entertainment. Our menu is pork, pork and more pork: siu mai, jiaozi, char siu, and a sweet'n'sour pork (with red dates and chili peppers - a new one for me). As all of these newcomers are Maple Leaf employees, we requested a donation-in-kind from MP. We thought we would need 60 casesx 20 lbs = 1200 lbs of boneless pork butte, and whatever they would donate would be great, and we'd buy the rest at wholesale.

Maple Leaf decided to donate ALL 60 cases, and each case = 20 KG! So, Happy Happy Joy Joy!

A local meat processor/abattoir (a supplier from my restaurant days) has offered to grind 600 lbs for us - free!

We have a vacant bakery at our venue (a downtown mall) for prep: walk-in coolers, walk-in freezers, huge work table, 2 commercial Hobart mixers. The Chinese fast food outlet has offered the use of their kitchen as normally after 6 pm, they are closed. We will have a 4 burner gas stove, 3 woks, and 2 deep fryers.

In conversation with other pavilion organizers, we can anticipate an average of 1000 meals each of three days. Last year was the first time for the English pavilion and they had over 5000 visitors - altho' not everyone ate.

Our $8.00 platter will include 3 siu mai, 3 jiaozi, Cantonese lo-mein, s'n's pork, char siu, and noodle cake for dessert. Otherwise, each "item" will be $2.00 (eg. 3 siu mai). There will be Tsingtao and Yanjing beer as well as a red wine called Great Wall - quite a nice red.

Our entertainment includes amazing vocal stylings(Chinese opera, pop, folk), tai-chi, traditional dances, acrobats from China, weaponery, lion dancers, traditional instrumentalists, magic face-changing, etc. etc.

It's been a busy two months of meetings, bookings, organizing, and chasing down people. It's much like restaurant logics, but at least it's short term!

Spring Festival follows on the heel of this event. This is usually hosted by the university's Chinese students association. It's popularity has grown tremendously (from just students to 500 guests last year!), and will be especially busy this year because it will be a first time away from home for many of the newcomers. Because it is so close to WinterFest, it was postponed until Feb. 23. The students are particiapting in the community event, so we will help them.

This is really the first time for full participation of all the Chinese community: Cantonese, Toisanese, Mandarin speakers. It's an exciting endeavour!

For more details: www.westmanchinese.com

[v. gautam]

How wonderful! Especially all the pieces falling together just so, as in having the space to work in [ bakery], cook in [commercial kitchen, health regs!], experienced (!) participants, chefs no less, and then all the generous people.

One thing, and maybe because we are the food-crazy bunch and it won't fly with the general public, nor are the logistics feasible, safety etc: I always think of professional Chinese cooking as a beautifully choreographed dance form using fire and various objects. As a dance, strength, endurance, grace, focus, teamwork as well as individual performance, so many aspects of a transient art. If only people could be introduced to this also as part of the culture, to appreciate it as the demanding art it is, not food, dance mind you, music and dance actually. All the rhythm that ends in the plating and swinging back to washing out for another order.

Maybe some day!

I used to cook as No.2 in a Lao-Thai restaurant with a very busy take out as well as sit-in custom. With a friendly FOH, and friendly BOH, for the cooks too it becomes like an intoxication, like an opium haze, an endorphin high that you really need, to keep going from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. with tickets lining up like crazy! No chance for the shooting flame excitement of pao cooking and wok breath here, but still, the roar of the gas jets has its own addictive quality--I think I dimly realize why people treasure their Harleys so.

The very best of luck and happy cooking. It feels wonderfully exciting and fulfilling, aching backs notwithstanding.

[Dejah]

I should add also that we will have demonstrations, not only of watercolour painting, calligraphy, but also handpulled noodles, dim sum making and steaming. I have invited several of our "aunties" to come and show how to make har gow, joongzi, etc, and they will have portable burners to steam them. They may just wrap the joongzi, but may make lotus leaf ones instead.

[sheetz]

Good luck! I've never had the chance to work in a commercial operation so if I lived out your way I would have definitely volunteered. How long does it take to shape 18,000 pieces of dim sum?

[v. gautam]

Way to go, Princess of Mars!

[Ben Hong]

You are to be congratulated for taking on such a venture for the logistics and coordination are not for the faint of heart. Good luck Dejah.

BTW how many guest workers are being imported?

[Dejah]

You are to be congratulated for taking on such a venture for the logistics and coordination are not for the faint of heart. Good luck Dejah.

BTW how many guest workers are being imported?

←

You have NO idea, Ben, how difficult is was to keep order among 12 men who are not used to the Canadian way of organization! One little difference of opinion can set them off onto a noisy tangent for 30 minutes or more if my voice was not louder than theirs!

Not sure what you meant by

BTW how many guest workers are being imported?

.

From 2005, we've had an influx of +400 new Chinese workers in Brandon with half of them already qualifying for permanent citizenship. Our pavilion volunteer base including local Chinese and students will number +200: entertainers, demos, prep, cooks, etc.

I'm teaching every day so it's a matter of getting down to the prep. sessions this week during the scheduled time. I'll make sure someone is taking pictures of the prep. in progress.

edited for grammar and clarity

Edited January 21, 2008 by Dejah (log)

[DylanK]

This is awesome, Dejah. So much work. You've gotta take lots of pictures.

The best sweet n' sour pork is made with those red bricks of shanzha (山楂) and just a bit of dried red chili.

XL Beef in Moose Jaw has been sponsoring workers from China for a while now, and hiring other local Chinese that came over mostly through the skilled trade worker program. The language of the Chinese community here has shifted from Guangdonghua to Mandarin. It's cool to see cats that just flew over from Beijing a year ago rolling in tight minivans and getting mortgages on new houses.

It would be great if XL Foods or the union would organize and make things smoother for newly arrived Chinese here. There's a huge ignorance of labour law and how a Canadian union and workplace work that makes me really, really worried. My wife and I have been unofficial translators for countless doctor visits, calls to gov't offices. etc. So, it's cool to hear about Maple Leaf.

[Dejah]

Dylank: Not sure what shanzha is as I don't read Chinese characters. I just know the chef asked me to order red dates (hung jo). Luckily, the ones we got were pitted, so no lawsuits for broken teeth.

The pork will be cut into bite size pieces, deep fried, then added to the sweet and sour sauce. It's almost like the way we used to make kuloyuk. I didn't realize there were round red chilis used in Chinese cooking, but I found them at our only Asian supply store in the city. The owner ordered all the wrappers, noodles, etc for us.

At first, one of the cooks was all excited about siu mai. Apparently it's a specialty in their part of China. I asked him what they used for filling, and he said, "Beef." I said no, we have to use pork as that's what the people here are familiar with. Well, his area is mostly MUSLIM, and they cannot eat pork. I knew that, but I couldn't understand how they can then WORK in the hog processing industry! Apparently it's ok to work with pork at the first stages of production, but they can't work with the product when the next step is cooking it!

[CFT]

Dylank: Not sure what shanzha is as I don't read Chinese characters.

Hawberries or hawthorn berries. You've probably eaten them as haw flakes - little red disks in a stack of maybe 10-15, sweet/sour. You can add them to the sweet 'n sour sauce.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crataegus

[canucklehead]

Dejah - you rock. What a great thing to do. I guess with dim sum - the tough part is steaming - what is going to be your plan of attack?

Also - is noodle cake the Chui Chow dish? Thin egg noodles fried into a disk - cut into wedges and served with sugar and vinegar?

[SuzySushi]

WOW! Sorry I can't be there for the festival... it sound like it will be awesome!

And $8 for the plate is an absolute bargain!

I'll be interested to hear how you mange to keep peace among all the different workers who haven't worked together before. I admire your gumption and skills!

[Dejah]

The 60 cases of pork butt were delivered to the bakery this morning. A little bump on the "road of progress": the butts are quick-frozen solid and will take 2 days to thaw! So, 16 cases (329 Kgs) were delivered to the meat grinders, and they will thaw then double grind for the proper texture, hopefully Thursday. Friday, the work crew and chef will mix and start making the siu mai.

Canucklehead: We will use 2 of the woks for steaming. These are 24 inch woks, and we have 2 sets of double-layer bamboo and metal steamers to do the siu mai. At the front counter is the steam "buffet table" with 5 large inserts. We will have 5 hot items, and that will work well to keep items hot. There will be 3 servers and one controller who will keep an eye on "refilling" these inserts.

I was thinking back to when I did my blog - 2004, I believe, when I posted my recipe for siu mai - for 40 lbs of ground pork. Jason Perlow asked if I could scale it down a bit. Now, I will have to multiply it many times!

5 cases of siu mai wrappers are thawing in the walk-in cooler, 6 cases of jiaozi wrappers along with a case of flowering chives for the jioazi. The chef had requested dong goo (Chinese mushrooms)as well as the chives for these dumplings. Instead of boiling these, we will deep fry them for speed.

Four of our local Chinese restaurant will be cooking the char siu for us - each doing 150 lbs. The pork will be cut into uniform strips and marinated in hoisin sauce, Chinese wine, five-spice powder, sugar, and red food colouring. These will be cooked, kept in the walk-in cooler, then freshened and dipped in honey wash before slicing.

The dessert noodle cake is called Kare Mah in Cantonese. These are commercially made - ordered from Vancouver supplier. Deep fried egg noodles held together with maltose and honey? and cut into small blocks.

As for the volunteers working together, most of them already work together at Maple Leaf. Many of them also share apartments.

We have constructed traditional entrance gates - like those at the entrance to cities: 2 big red pillars with a golden arch. A calligrapher has written the characters: China Gate (Jong Kwok Moon) on the arch. We have large red lanterns and a huge dragon kite as part of the ceiling decoration.

[mizducky]

What an operation! Best of luck, Dejah!

[Dejah]

Had another little bump on the road that stubbed my toe - and that bump was the English language. The newcomers who could speak and understand English (or so we thought), were put in charge of different depts: chef/prep/cooks, set-up, host, servers, etc. However, they didn't grasp the idea of signing on according to the schedule sheets I gave them! They work on the basis of rounding people up for the day! I assumed (wrongly!) that they do shift work and would understand the shift schedule concept. And, I assumed that what they say is what they mean!

So, yesterday was to be the day for deboning and cutting the alloted meat for koo lo yuk. (bone-in butts was another little bump we didn't expect. Being free, we couldn't complain!) One of the assistant heads called Tues and couldn't get anyone to come in, so one day was lost.

Thru' interpretors (neither my brother nor I speak Mandarin), we think they finally realized the magnitude of the event and the quantity of food we have to prepare. A crew is coming in at 9:30 am today, to be followed by more when they get off shift at 3 pm. and will work until 9:30 pm. If they don't, I'll be in a panic! They've promised full days from now on. We have another dept. head meeting tomorrow as well as dressed rehearsal for all local performers, so we'll see.

I'll be going down at 1 pm today, and will be taking pictures of the work, I hope, in progress. The ground pork will be delivered this morning; some will be cutting and others will be making siu mai.

[C. sapidus]

Dejah, best wishes for avoiding any more road bumps and toe stubs. The scale of your operation boggles my mind, because feeding 15 or 20 people is a major operation for us. I suppose your restaurant experience comes in very handy at such times.

Who do you have signed up to take pictures?

[Dejah]

I think the ball is finally rolling: 6 guys went to the prep. area this morning, and in one hour, cut up 14 cases x 20 kg of pork butt. The wonderful surprise was that after the initial 2 boxes, all the others were BONELESS! We thought we'd have to debone all this morning.

I went down with my s-i-l and one of my evening Chinese students at 2. We used the Hobart mixers and did up 88 lbs of ground pork with all the seasonings. Between the three of us, we made up 250 siu mai in 45 minutes. A group of 6 came in at 5 pm, and by 7:30, we had 1800 made. We only used up about half of the 88 lbs so far.

Tomorrow, we start at 9:30 am again until 7:30 pm. There will be 2 shifts, so we hope to have all the siu mai completed and another 100 lbs of pork cut up. Sunday is a day of rest, then Monday is jiaozi workday. If I have my way, they will be done after Tues. It's ok if we don't get them all done as we can make more during the festival days.

Tonight, I'm christening my new Cuisinart food processor with 10 lbs of carrots as the chef requested for the jiaozi. He's also adding Chinese mushrooms and celery. He had originally asked for flowering chives. Now, he doesn't want them, so we'll use the case for the lo mein.

Bruce: My brother and hubby took some pictures. Won't get processed tonight, but hope to have some up tomorrow night.

Off to shred my carrots!

[kbjesq]

Bruce: My brother and hubby took some pictures. Won't get processed tonight, but hope to have some up tomorrow night.

←

Best of luck on this enterprise. I wish that I lived closer so I could see it in person. Looking forward to seeing lots and lots of photos and detailed descriptions!

[jackal10]

Luck, but we need pictures, pictures...

[prasantrin]

Whew! I do not envy you your task, but I do envy the food that will be the outcome! If I were back in Winnipeg, I would definitely make the trek out the Brandon for this! (And I've never even been to Brandon!)

When my mother was the co-ordinator for the Filipino Pavilion at Folklorama (way back in the '70s), one of the first things she did was contract out the food services. She knew she would not have the patience to oversee a bunch of relative new-comers in making and serving all that food. You're really amazing for taking this on! And ya, pictures...we need pictures...

Edited January 27, 2008 by prasantrin (log)

[Dejah]

An update and a couple of pictures before ANOTHER meeting:

The man with the red shirt and cap is Thomas, our main chef. He and his crew are cutting up the pork butts into cubes for sweet'n'sour pork.

Maple Leaf is a most generous sponsor.

Each member brought his own knife. I wish we had a close up of the handles. Acouple had beautiful dragons on them. They had just gotten off from their night shift at 7 am, went home, showered, grabbed breakfast and came in at 9:30. They finished cutting the 14 cases in an hour.

At 1:00 pm, after teaching my morning classes at the university, I met up with my s-i-l and one of my evening students, and we started with the first 44 lbs of ground pork for siu mai. The Hobart mixtures were a blessing. I was able to mix up half of each case per bowl.

At first I used a different paddle - one with more "prongs". Even this one was a struggle to pull off once it was convered with meat. It took a while for us to figure out all the little details on using this big fella - timer switch, cage, etc. After the first couple of minutes of mixing, the machine stopped and we couldn't get it to start again. After fiddling around with breakers, plug ins, THEN I decided to check the dial on the side of the machine. Huh! A timer...

Finaly, the three of us got started with making the siu mai. There were only three of us until 5pm when I got panicky and made some phone calls.

Our first full tray (+200 pieces in 45 minutes) and more in the bowl!

[sheetz]

Man, what an operation! I knew from your descriptions earlier that it was a big job, but as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words!

[Dejah]

By 5 pm, more and more volunteers arrived! Most just finished day shift, home, showers, lunch, then came to help out.

Most of these folks have not made siu mai before. We started with everyone scooping their own filling, then we noticed that there was no uniformity. S-i-l decided we must use an assembly line method, for speed as well as for uniformity. Jing, my student used the fist method to portion out the meat, then, she and s-i-l, "trained" leaders with each new group as portion controllers. They squeezed, scooped the portions onto a wax-paper lined pan, and each worker used a plastic knife to place it on their wrapper, then formed each siu mai.

We even had a non-Chinese volunteer (Gayle in the red plaid) - a friend of one of the workers. She loved the activity. We also used it as a mini-ESL lesson - pronunciation mainly. There was a lot of laughter.

[Dejah]

Off to the meeting - more pictures to come tonight. We DID get the 9000 siu mai done by 7:30 last night, as well as +2000 jiaozi.

[canucklehead]

Love it! You guys look like you working your asses off but having a great time. Lots of pride in that cooking.