Learn How To Make The Dumpling Recipe From Pixar's 'Bao'
Did Pixar's heartwarming and magnificent animated short Bao have you craving the love of your absent child, or better yet, dumplings? If it was the latter, then you're in luck because Pixar has released the Bao recipe that director Domee Shi learned from her own mother. Unfortunately, this recipe probably won't solve any feelings of abject loneliness surrounding a child who has left the nest. But hey, at least you'll have delicious food!
Incredibles 2 may have had a somewhat divisive reception, but many of us can agree that the short that aired in front of it, Bao, is one of Pixar's best animated shorts yet.Bao is a tender, funny, and realistic depiction of mothers suffering from empty-nest syndrome. But most importantly, it gives a peek into the cultural divide between Asian parents and their American-born children. As a Vietnamese-American, I related too hard to the mother's attempts to keep her dumpling son from forgetting his Chinese culture. It's an achingly authentic depiction of the struggle for first-generation Asian-Americans who are torn between tradition and assimilation. And oh man, did I cry when the mother and son came to the realization that they couldn't go back to the way things were, but they could at least compromise.
It's a torrent of emotions to go through in 8 minutes — and astonishingly, Bao does all that while making us crave the most delicious-looking animated dumplings. And Pixar has released how to make real versions of those dumplings in a cute illustration featuring Shi's conversation with her mother.
See the adorably illustrated recipe below.
Shi reveals that the recipe was exact replica of her mother's old dumpling recipe. Shi even brought her mother to the Pixar offices to recreate the recipe in front of a camera, earning Shi's mother the title of cultural consultant. "In the opening shots, when you see the hands kneading the dough, that's all my mom's folding techniques—the way she punches a hole through the dough and does that crazy windmill move, that's how my mom would roll out the dough," Shi told Food and Wine.
The fun conversation between Shi and her mother about measurements is another all-to0-real touch — I can't count the number of times I've asked my mom or grandmother for exact measurements for family recipes and they shrugged and told me to Google it.
For those who are hard of sight, or don't want to get distracted by the adorable illustrations every time you cook, here are the instructions written out:
Pixar Bao Recipe
Ingredients you need: flour, dry yeast, water for the dough; for the filling: ground pork, Chinese cabbage, carrots, onion stalks, an egg, ground ginger, olive oil, chicken bouillon powder, oyster sauce, cooking wine, and pepper.Step 1: Mix the flour and yeast in a mixing bowl.Step 2: Add water and knead.Step 3: Let the dough rest and rise.Step 4: Cook half the pork in a pan and mix it with the raw meat.Step 5: Mix it up with all the other ingredients (vegetables chopped, eggs beaten) and a healthy dosing of salt.Step 6: Roll out the dough using Domee Shi's mom's signature windmill technique.Step 7: Cut the dough into half-inch pieces and roll these out to form wrappers.Step 8: Fill the wrappers and pinch.Step 9: Place the dumplings in a steamer basket lined with cabbage leaves and place on top of a bot of boiling water for 5 minutes.Step 10: Eat or adopt your dumpling as you see fit.
Now there's no guarantee that your dumpling will spring to life, but