Making Wontons: A PowerHouseCreatives Contest Entry

This is my entry for the Powerhousecreatives Damn Delicious contest being run by @zord189 and @steemitbloggers.

In the cold winter months, there is nothing better than a bowl of noddles, veggies and wontons. Wonton are the Chinese take on the soup dumplings that seem to be a staple part of pretty every cuisine culture all over the world. Take some pastry and stick stuff in it... fry it, bake it, soup it, steam it!

Anyway, Wontons can be served up cooked in soup or deep fried for a nice snack! It is also a great thing to make a huge batch of, to store in the freezer for those moments when you just want to heat up a nice warm soup for a cold winter's lunch (or dinner.... or breakfast!).

Once every couple months... I go on a Wonton making frenzy... to make sure that the freezer is restocked. This means that I will be spending the afternoon, mixing the meat mix... and then folding the pastry and carefully packing the little parcel treats so that they are not sticking together too much when I freeze them!

This is the sort of cooking where it definitely takes longer to make the little treats than it does to stuff them down your face!

The critical part of wonton making is the pastry. This is the sort of thing that I much prefer to buy at the local Chinese supermarket rather than making by hand. Every Chinese supermarket will stock this.. look for them in the freezer (and store them in the freezer!). On the day that you want to make the wontons, make sure to take them out at least 6 hours beforehand, so that they can defrost... I often take them out the evening before and leave them in the fridge.

Ingredients

Wonton Pastry (at least 2 packs, you will use them faster than you use the mix!).
250-500g Mince (Chicken or Pork, pork is better... don't get more than 500g, you will be completely sick of folding pastries long before you run out of mince!).
Ginger (as much as possible!)
Garlic (lots... at least 6 cloves...)
Chinese cabbage (to fill out the mix)
Shallots (or red onion if you can't get it)
Small bowl of cold water for sticking the pastry

Method

The mix that you will be making is pretty simple. I'm not really one for making really exact proportions... I am a "wing-it" sort of cook... which means that desserts usually fail in a spectacular way! However, for main meals... it seems to work... or at least, no one has complained directly to my face yet... or died (that I know of...)!

Mince the garlic and the ginger into a large mixing bowl, you can buy bottles of pre-minced garlic and ginger if you want (from Chinese stores...)... but there really isn't any point. Use the fresh stuff, you should have them easily on hand anyway if you are into cooking!

Plop the meat into the bowl and get your hands dirty and mush it all in together (or enlist the help of a child.... they like getting their hands dirty!).

Finely chop the cabbage and the shallots and add to the mix. It is important that the cabbage is finely chopped, especially the harder stem parts, as they will poke holes in the pastry later if they are too big!

Mix Mix Mix... you want all the ingredients really as well mixed in as possible... it can be hilarious if someone else chomps straight into a wonton full of ginger... but there is too much chance that that person could be yourself, so avoid the risk... mix well, and just stuff ginger in people's mouths when they are asleep to be sure you get the right person!

Folding

This part is the trickiest part... but once you have it down pat, it will be pretty easy... but tedious. Make sure that you have several podcasts or playlists ready before you start... you hands will be messy once you start and it will be a pain to change the list or line up a playlist!

I also mentioned it before, but just to remind you... have a bowl of cold water for sticking the pastry ends together!

Place a small amount of the meat mix in the centre of the wonton skin. Resist the urge to make it too big, you will get the hang of it... but smaller is better than bigger! When you fold it, a blob that is too big will break the pastry and be ruined.

Now, dip your finger in the cold water and wet two adjacent sides of the pastry sides (just wipe your finger along the sides).

Fold the pastry over, and then squeeze tighter to stick them together. Dip your finger in the water and touch the three corners.

Bring the two outside corners around to the middle corner, and squeeze tight to stick them together!

That is it... number 1... of 200-300. Now that you've got the hang of it... it is best to set up a sort of factory line for this. I tend to do each step with 4-6 wonton skins at a time.

You will end up with several baking trays worth of wontons... and a few hours of lost time! So, as I mentioned before... use the opportunity to line up all those backlogged Netflix and podcast shows that you have missed in the past year!

Often, I end up with extra meat mix and too few wonton skins (or lack of patience!)... so, you can keep that aside and pan fry it with steamed rice... a sort of flavoured fried rice! It is actually quite decent!

Cooking it up

There are two ways to serve this up. Boiled in a broth with noodles and Chinese Vegetables (it cooks up pretty fast!) or deep fried as a nice afternoon snack or for a party!

In this particular case, I was preparing the wontons to deep fry for a party. In this case, you need to heat up some frying oil to near boiling point (use the bread trick to test it...). Drop a few wontons in... and they are done pretty damn quickly, just pull one out to see if it has a nice golden brown colour to it (and eat it to test...)!

Transfer to a papered tray to soak up the excess oil for later "presentation"... which is something that my wife does. I tend to just dump them on a plate or bowl and call it a day!

As I had mentioned before, you can also pack these flat (in a plastic ziplock bag) to store in the freezer. These will keep for a few months and make for an easy way have a quick meal on hand. I recommend about ten per adult.. these are flavour parts of the meal, the filler will be the noodles and the vegetables and the broth!

A Secret!

Now, these deep fried Wontons are pretty awesome by themselves... but the real secret is to find and make a great dipping sauce! However, this is a closely guarded secret... let us just say there is Soy Sauce (light), garlic, fish sauce, chili and Hoisin Sauce... in super secret proportions!

Of course, you can always go with Sweet Chili Sauce, Mayonnaise or any other number of pre-prepared alternatives... but nothing beats a good homemade dipping sauce!