Writers Jamie, Jeanne and my
family go on a food tour!!! We were all
invited to a very special food factory, “Green Chopsticks" which is
headquartered in Alhambra, CA. We toured
their kitchen where delicious dumplings are made in a state of the art
facility.
In order to
go inside the dumpling kitchen, we first had gone through a total
body sanitizing process. We washed our hands, put on our white
sanitary coats, hair hats and went through an air closet which removed
any unwanted particles on our body. We then stepped into a
cleaning agent to cleanse our shoes and off we went. We were
sanitized from top to bottom in a matter of minutes.
Walking into the
facility, the temperature was North Pole cold. Inside, the floor was
specially made for this state of the art kitchen to maintain a clean and safe environment.
We were all very impressed with how they cared about their food handling
standards. Image a place that is completely sealed with little
magical elves that come and clean every minute of the day. It was the cleanest place
any of us had ever experienced.
We soon made it to the start of the assembly line to see how they
make kitchen magic.
The dumpling
process was broken up in teams. There was the dough making
process, the fresh vegetable process, the fresh meat process,
the final assembly and the cooking / freezing process bringing all the
ingredients together. The whole operation was incredible to watch. The kids were shocked to see the entire process.
We watched how workers mixed the dough. It was then placed in a roll and was set
in a heavy duty machine to cut the outside of dumpling. The vegetable
processing area, the vegetables consisted of green cabbage, onions,
garlic and leek. They were washed, cut and mixed with other
ingredients such as soy sauce, sesame oil, evaporated cane juice, salt,
oyster sauce and black pepper. Next, we saw the meat processing
area. The meat was fresh and cut in the
kitchen into tiny pieces. Nothing was pre-cut or frozen and only fresh
ingredients went into the dumplings.
After watching the
dumplings being assembled, they were placed on a special machine where they
were lined up and steamed. We sampled the finished product as the
dumplings marched on to be prepared for freezing and packaging. The whole
process taught us the care that went into preparing these delicious dumplings.
Yum, Yum!
Green
Chopsticks dumplings can be bought at Gourmet Markets such as
Gelson's Market, Bristol Farms, Wholesome Choice and Costco Roadshows.
Dumplings marching
to the store near you!
Comments