Wonton Frito Mexicalense

This is from Mexicali. Specifically from La Chinesca, the Chinatown that sits in the middle of Baja California's capital and that has fed the city for over a hundred years. Mexicali has the largest Chinese-Mexican community in the country, and the wonton frito is one of the dishes that came out of that meeting. It is not Chinese food and it is not Mexican food in the sense that a senora in Oaxaca would recognize. It is Mexicalense, and that is its own thing.

The filling is shredded chicken, onion, chile serrano, soy sauce, a few drops of sesame oil. The wrapper is the same wonton sheet they use in Guangzhou. The dip is ketchup mixed with Valentina, eaten with a squeeze of lime. Anyone who tells you that combination is wrong has never sat down at a cafe on Avenida Juarez at one in the afternoon and watched the entire dining room dunking wontons into red plastic squeeze bottles. Cada estado, su propia cocina. Baja's includes this.

I spent two weeks in Mexicali for the Baja chapter of the book. I sat with cooks at El Dragon and Restaurante Nuevo Pekin and they showed me how they wrap, how they fry, how the filling has to be cool before it goes near the wrapper or the whole batch falls apart in the oil. None of them apologized for the ketchup. Why would they. It is what works. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo, and Mexicali figured this dish out a long time ago.