Chicken and Cashew Steamed Buns

Mark and Carmen are getting married. He called on Sunday — the weekly call, the Navy-trained-brevity call — and said, "We're doing it. Small ceremony. Courthouse. September." I said, "Mark. Mark. That's wonderful." He said, "Yeah." The "yeah" was Mark's entire emotional vocabulary compressed into three letters. I could hear Carmen laughing in the background, and the laughter was the translation — Carmen laughs for Mark the way Lourdes cooks for Reynaldo, filling in the emotional expressions that the Santos men don't know how to make.

Lourdes's response, when I told her: silence. Then: "I can't make lumpia for my son's wedding." The silence was not about disapproval — Lourdes approves of Carmen, has approved since the first video call where Carmen held up a plate of her own adobo and Lourdes critiqued the vinegar ratio with the warmth of a woman who knows that critiquing your future daughter-in-law's adobo is the highest form of acceptance. The silence was about the pandemic. About the impossibility of attending. About the three hundred lumpia that won't be made, the church ceremony that won't happen, the mother of the groom who will watch her son's wedding on Zoom because a virus decided that 2020 would be the year when everything happened through a screen.

I made lechon kawali and brought it to Lourdes. Not for Mark's wedding — just because. Because she was sad and lechon kawali is the cure for Santos sadness, the crispy pork belly that can fix almost anything, the food that says: the world is terrible but the pork is perfect and the perfect pork is enough for now.

Angela came over too. The three Santos women in the Mountain View kitchen, eating lechon kawali, talking about Mark's wedding, planning what they could do from a distance. Lourdes decided she would make lumpia anyway — three hundred, frozen, shipped to San Diego in a cooler. "The lumpia will be there," she said, "even if I can't." The lumpia as proxy. The lumpia as mother. The lumpia traveling the miles the mother cannot. This is Lourdes's pandemic solution: if she can't go, the food will go in her place.

After that afternoon in Lourdes’s kitchen — watching her decide that if she couldn’t be at Mark’s wedding, her food would be — I couldn’t stop thinking about the idea of food as messenger, food as presence, food folded and sealed and sent. Lumpia was Lourdes’s answer; these Chicken and Cashew Steamed Buns became mine. They’re not lumpia, and they’re not lechon kawali, but there’s something in the act of folding filling into dough and steaming it into something soft and whole that felt true to what that afternoon was about — taking what you have, wrapping it up carefully, and sending it forward.

Prep Time: 35 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 55 minutes (includes 1 hour rise) | Servings: 12 buns

Ingredients

For the dough:
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast (one standard packet)
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 cup warm water (110°F)
1 tablespoon neutral oil (vegetable or canola)
1/2 teaspoon salt
For the filling:
1 lb ground chicken
1/2 cup roasted cashews, roughly chopped
3 tablespoons hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 green onions, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon white pepper

Instructions

Activate the yeast. Combine warm water and sugar in a large bowl. Sprinkle yeast over the surface and let sit 5–8 minutes until foamy. If the yeast doesn’t foam, start over with fresh yeast.
Make the dough. Add oil and salt to the yeast mixture. Add flour one cup at a time, stirring until a shaggy dough forms, then turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead 8–10 minutes until smooth and elastic. Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a damp towel, and let rise in a warm spot for 1 hour or until doubled.
Cook the filling. While the dough rises, heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Add ground chicken and cook, breaking it apart, until no longer pink, about 6 minutes. Drain any excess liquid. Add garlic and ginger and cook 1 minute more. Stir in hoisin sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, cornstarch, and white pepper. Cook another 2 minutes until the mixture is glossy and slightly thickened. Remove from heat and fold in cashews and green onions. Let cool completely before filling.
Divide and shape. Punch down the risen dough and divide into 12 equal portions. On a lightly floured surface, roll each portion into a circle about 4 inches in diameter, making the edges slightly thinner than the center.
Fill and fold. Place 2 heaping tablespoons of filling in the center of each circle. Gather the edges upward around the filling, pleating and pinching firmly to seal the top. Place each bun sealed-side up on a small square of parchment paper. Let rest 15 minutes.
Steam. Arrange buns in a bamboo or metal steamer basket in a single layer with at least 1 inch between each bun (work in batches if needed). Steam over boiling water on medium-high heat for 15–18 minutes, until the dough is puffed, set, and no longer tacky. Do not lift the lid during steaming.
Serve. Let buns rest 2 minutes before serving. Serve warm with extra hoisin sauce or a simple dipping sauce of soy sauce, rice vinegar, and a few drops of chili oil.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chicken and Cashew Steamed Buns — When the Food Has to Travel in Your Place