Chinese American Celebrates Lunar New Year by Making Dumplings Following a White Lady’s TikTok

She makes really good Lo Mein n’ Dino Chicken Nuggets

February 1, 2022

By: Julia Zhen

Lunar New Year is a great time to try out some family recipes that you have yet to cook on your own, so Charles Ma set out to do exactly that. But not without the help of his favorite white lady cook from TikTok. 

“I know I should probably just call my mom to figure out the dumpling recipe, but I feel like Kaitlin Rae knows the secrets!” stated Ma. “I don’t know, she just seems like someone who gets it.” 

Upon a review of Rae’s TikTok, it looked like she was quite the asian “fusion” cuisine buff, conjuring dishes like Lo Mein n’ Dino Chicken Nuggets and Pad Thai with Linguini. 

“Dumplings are one of the easiest things you can make, and I’m here to show you today,” Rae excitedly says in 1 of 4 of her Lunar New Year cooking series. “I grew up Polish and we would make pierogies all the time, so it’s like basically the same thing. Today’s filling is going to be cheese and potatoes. I know it sounds too Polish, so to make it Asian I’m going to add soy sauce into the dumpling skin’s dough.” The four other dishes in this series included her take on spring rolls with ketchup dipping sauce, steamed fish but fried, and sweet rice balls but frozen so it’s like mochi.

Upon Ma’s mother’s discovery that he was opting to follow Kaitlin Rae rather than their family recipe, she did not seem surprised.

“He hated eating Chinese food growing up. Always asking for things like chicken tenders and mac n’ cheese, which is surprising because he can’t even digest dairy. I don’t care how he makes his ‘dumplings’ though, unless he’s coming into my house to make them. In which case I will ask him to leave the kitchen and go play Nintendo or whatever he does.”

As Charles continued to replay the video of Kaitlin Rae making the dumplings so that he could follow along, he kept whispering ‘she’s so hot.’