Food Notes: 3/24
Viral dumpling lasagna, $50 lobstah rolls, cookbooks, kid's menus and more
“I was skeptical but it’s actually really good,” my wife said. We were in the middle of eating my version of the viral dumpling lasagna.
I’m no stranger to internet-famous lasagna. A few years back I cooked up my own version of Don Angie’s Spiral Lasagna, a three-day odyssey where I tamed the epic monument to Italian American excess. So naturally when I heard about a new viral TikTok fad that involved “lasagna” and “dumpling,” I wanted to give it a go.
I’ll admit, I first came across a version of this served to me while doomscrolling on Instagram. I shared the video with my wife, and then this version with whole dumplings and a curry peanut butter sauce.
This latter video set off the debate: layered lasagna or whole dumplings? My wife wanted to go with a recipe that used whole dumplings layered together in a lasagna tray. I wanted to layer in meat and wonton wrappers. Since I was the one headed to the grocery store, I won. Besides, I spent the morning reading through recipes for the viral dumpling lasagna, like this one at All Recipes, but also this one, this other one, and still another one. Just about everyone agreed: meat, wonton wrappers, repeat.
That’s an excellent segue to talk about wontons. In Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States, Andrew Coe explains wontons as a type of bing, a dumpling popular in China since the medieval era, and Coe notes, “in Cantonese, the word wantan is written out as “cloud-swallowing”.” He also explained that during the Tang Dynasty (608-907 CE), there was an evolution of bing, where a distinction between dumplings and noodles (mian) became defined as distinctive foods.
Fast forward a few centuries and multiple empires, and Chinese cuisine began to spread across the United States. Especially during the post-war period, wonton wrappers became integrated into new Americanized dishes like cheesesteak egg rolls around Philadelphia and crab rangoon. Chinese cuisine, as Jennifer 8 Lee succinctly sums up in The Fortune Cooke Chronicles, “is not a set of dishes. It is a philosophy that serves local tastes and ingredients.”
It was inevitable, too, that Chinese and Italian cuisine should meet, which is why in places like Boston Chinese restaurants serve Peking Ravioli (similar to a fried wonton). And elsewhere, one of the nation’s greatest culinary achievements: the pizza egg roll. It was so good, it was invented twice. First, a Minnesota man who returned from the war and had built a business producing canned Chinese Food developed a pizza egg roll using his wonton wrapper machine. His company was eventually sold and the product became known as Totino’s Pizza Rolls. Meanwhile, in Buffalo, America’s finger food capital, one family has been manufacturing pizza logs, another pizza-filled egg roll treat, for decades.
Considering how intertwined Chinese and Italian cuisines have become in America, it’s surprising that it has taken this long for a dumpling-lasagana collab. Baked Italian lasagna and Italian dumplings are culinary siblings afterall, both using sheets of fresh lasagna in their creation. Baked lasagna is one of the oldest preparations for Italian pasta, and as for Ravioli, they were widely consumed by the Renaissance era. Antonio Latini, author of the 17th century Italian cookery book, Lo Scalco alla Moderna, mentions that by his time, regional Ravioli styles were popular across the peninsula.
So how did these two delicious foods merge in a TikTok sensation? It all started with April Liang posting to her Instagram and TikTok late last year a recipe she created to turn her favorite soup dumpling flavors into a lasagna. In her video, she makes individualized portions in a personal-sized ramekin. Her version also includes steaming the dish in a pot of water.
In the weeks that followed, she racked up tens of thousands of views, and spawned dozens of imitations. The recipe began to evolve. Chile crisp started becoming a big part of the recipe, and then full pan lasagna’s developed. Perhaps not unexpectedly, a few weeks ago, the almighty algorithm began feeding me videos of people making variations on the dumpling lasagna, and that’s when I sent the videos to my wife.
Making the dumpling lasagna was actually a very easy task (much easier than the three days I spent making Don Angie’s Spiral Lasagna). After tasting it, we agreed it was the kind of dish that might show up once or twice a year. The ease of cooking and cleanup certainly helped.
The only problem now is figuring out what to do with the leftover wonton wrappers.
Viral Dumpling Lasagna (Ian's Version)
INGREDIENTS
1lb ground pork
2 tablespoons soy sauce
3 garlic gloves ground
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1-2 cups shredded cabbage
18 scallions
Wonton wrappers (8 to 12 depending on size)
½ cup water
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
Chile Crisp
INSTRUCTIONS
Chop scallions, reserving ⅓
Combine pork, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, vinegar, oil, oyster sauce, cabbage, scallions
Season with salt, pepper, (sichuon pepper, too)
Mix ingredients well
Layer half of mixture into a baking dish
Layer wonton wrappers over it evenly
Add another layer of meat
Top with wontons
Pour ½ cup of water over the dish
Bake at 350F for 20 to 30 minutes (until meat hist 160 degrees and wontons are golden)
Remove from oven and rest for 5 minutes
Top with chile crisp, toasted sesame seeds, and reserved scallions
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