If any rules surround the making of empanadas, bao, dumplings or potstickers, Chin Malin — a new chef selling her food at this year’s Downtown Farmers Market in Salt Lake City— has thrown most of them out the window.
Fusing disparate cuisines, Malin creates food like her birria potstickers, a Mexican-meets-Asian dish where tender, slow-cooked beef is simmered in a spiced broth and encased in a soft dough, then garnished with cilantro, red onion and radish. There’s birria jus on the side for dunking, along with a chili- and garlic-infused oil to drizzle on the top.
Then there’s her Cubano bao, which is made with crispy pan-fried pork with ham, mustard and pickles on a fluffy bao bun. There’s an option to add egg and cheese to make it “breakfast-y.”
Malin (pronounced “MAY-lin”), the owner and founder of S.A.L.T. Suburban Kitchen, is quietly revolutionizing her corner of the food world. Her upbringing, though, was “traditional,” she said — her parents are Chinese, and Malin lived with her family in Tangra, a small community in the Indian city of Kolkata.
Her parents were strict, she said, and raised her to not take shortcuts. “My parents definitely instilled in me values of hard work and perseverance and just keep at it and not just do a shoddy job; it’s not my style,” she said.
Malin attended boarding school at a convent in Darjeeling when she was 8, and later had an arranged marriage when she was 20. (It didn’t work out, and Malin is now happily remarried.)
Even though her earlier years were dictated by rules and tradition, Malin said she has a “rebellious streak,” which tends to come out in her food.
“I like to explore,” she said. “Having been in the U.S. and having tried so many different cuisines, that has really encouraged me to just get out there and combine flavors, not be afraid to try to see what works, what doesn’t. You’ve got to experiment.”
‘Surrounded by food’
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Chin Malin, the owner of S.A.L.T. Suburban Kitchen, speaks with customers at her booth at the Downtown Farmer's Market in Salt Lake City on Saturday, June 29, 2024.
Malin grew up watching her mother and grandmother cook. Wanting to participate, she would help peel vegetables and butcher chickens, and developed an interest in working in the kitchen from an early age.
She started gaining exposure to different foods from the street vendors who would set up shop outside their home in Tangra. Malin said she and her family were “constantly surrounded by food, and constantly eating and trying different kinds of food. And our house was always food-filled,” usually with five meals a day.
They would make dim sum at home once a week, because there weren’t any dim sum houses in India, Malin said. Her mother would make fluffy, white bao filled with meat, egg and vegetables.
As a teenager, she would cook for her dad and his friends as they played mahjong. “It was afternoon tea time, and they always expected tea and snacks,” she said. “So there I was in the kitchen, whipping up these new snacks for them to try. So it was always something.”
Malin’s family immigrated to Canada around 1995, and Malin went to the United States to be with her husband at the time. After that marriage ended, she was living in New Jersey, where she worked in the restaurant and bar industry for more than 20 years. New Jersey is also where she met her current husband and tried Mexican food for the first time. She fell in love with both.
“I knew right away that Mexican cuisine and I were going to be having a long-term relationship,” she said.
She eventually moved with her husband to California, where she continued to try different cuisines and learn about different types of food. But she always remained a fan of Mexican food.
“I immediately gravitated to Mexican flavors, without even so much as a blink of an eye, like, ‘Oh my gosh, I just knew I’d be having that,” she said. “I can eat Mexican every day. That’s how much I love it.”
Malin said she has found commonalities between Mexican and Indian food. The spices that are used are often the same, she said, especially chilies, cumin, clove and cinnamon. Both cuisines also use a lot of garlic, peppers, onions, tomato, cilantro and other herbs, she said. Mexican moles remind her of Indian curries, she added.
In 2021, Malin and her husband moved to Utah, and she launched S.A.L.T. Suburban Kitchen this January.
Cooking with heart
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Dumplings sit in a warmer at the S.A.L.T. Suburban Kitchen booth at the Downtown Farmer's Market in Salt Lake City on Saturday, June 29, 2024.
Malin presented her food to the Downtown Farmers Market jury in March, and was accepted to this summer’s market. Seekers of her potstickers, dumplings and other handheld foods can find her booth on Saturdays near the center of Pioneer Park, between Uinta Coffee and Base Camp Kitchen.
She said she loves seeing people’s reactions to her food, like the chicken tinga and cheese empanada, or the shrimp and pork steamed “dumpling purses.” And don’t forget the handmade sauces that go with each creation.
“I’m a cook who cooks with a lot of heart,” she said. “My heart and soul, I pour into it. ... I share it in the hopes that people would love it, and that to me is my biggest reward.”
For now, the Downtown Farmers Market is the only place where you can find Malin’s food. But working out of a commissary kitchen at 56 E. 3335 South in South Salt Lake, Malin said she plans to implement takeout and delivery later this month. She plans to make takeout available on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from noon to 4 p.m., and delivery will be available through DoorDash within a certain distance.
Customers will be able to place orders on SaltSuburbanKitchen.com. For updates on new foods that will be available at the Downtown Farmers Market (she plans to add a couple of new flavors of sweet hand pies, for example, as well as a vegan bao), follow @saltsuburbankitchen on Instagram.