Wonton Soup II

Wonton Soup
Originally uploaded by L.TON

Per usual, my blogs have been few and far between. I really have no excuse for December's lack of blogging, except for perhaps two week's worth of finals. Psh, I know. Such an excuse for the weak!

So hopefully everyone had a happy and safe holiday with their families and loved ones! I was tucked away in the woods of Preston, CT- enjoying all the comforts of home for a good 12 days. There, I indulged in all the foods that my mom likes to stock pile when my sister and I are home. I had aspirations to do a blog or two when I was home, but the fact that my mom was there, cooking FOR me... well, I just was enjoying being spoiled too much to be bothered to concoct my own recipes.

All in all, I had a great, great time in CT. Of course, all good things must come to an end.... that is for better things! The rest of my winter break was spent in Colorado enjoying high altitude, fresh air, and especially good company. I had my first experience snowboarding in CO and lets just say, when forced to go down runs called "The Moz", uhh, there is a lot of shrieking before many impacts that follow the shriek. But, the upside is, I didn't break anything, no tripping in parking lots, and make it back to Chicago in one piece for the most part.

Okay, so after a quick recap of my life, lets get back to why I am blogging about Wonton soup. I know, I've blogged it before... but this time, there is an actual recipe!! Having a craving for a good meal made with my own hands, I thought I would give the wonton soup a shot. Leaving CO, where 38F feels AWESOME because of the dry desert air, to come back to the city where the temp is 3F WITHOUT the windchill, that just means one thing: SOUP.

I made a chicken/shrimp stock (I will not blog because it came out part disastrous, part really good) as the soup base. But for this blog, I'll only post how to do the filling and wontons. To make a reasonable broth, just heat up some chicken stock and add a splash or two of fish sauce.

Wonton, as my mom makes it, is a combination of shrimp and pork ground together in a food processor. Since I am always cooking for myself, portion control is a HUGE problem. This time intensive soup is not meant to make just one serving. For the pork, I bought a small chunk of pork belly from Whole Foods and about .5 lbs 50-60 cnt head on shrimp, which I then proceeded to devein, peel and behead to toss the shells and shrimp head into the stock pot.

I think the most difficult part will be finding good wonton wrappers (who likes thick wonton wrappers? certainly not I!) and good, fresh wonton noodle. You'll want to hit your local asian grocery for that. Lucky for me, I keep that stuff handy in the freezer. The sauces and spices in the filling should be easily found in the international food aisle, but if you are already at the asian grocery getting your wonton wrappers and noodles, you might want to pick up the fish sauce and oyster sauce there too. Be warned though, Fish sauce only comes in 1 litre bottles.

FISH SAUCE? ewwwwww you might say. But I would take that back if I were you. I bet if you ever ate anything asian, there's most likely at least a splash of fish sauce, if not more. It's sort of the magic sauce that makes everything really tasty.

You'll also note that I did not use any salt in the filling. The fish sauce IS the salt seasoning for the filling, so you won't want to add any additional salt.

I sort of gauged my filling seasoning by smell. Kind of weird, I know. But you sort of just KNOW when it is seasoned just right via smell, plus I am a very scent oriented person so, it works for me. Also, something about taste testing raw pork and shrimp... Trichinosis anyone?


Wonton Dumplings

ingredients
~.5 lbs uncooked shrimp, you can just get already peeled, beheaded ones. or beheaded, deveined and then peel them
~.5 lbs pork belly (also known as pork side), cut into .5inch chunks

1 small shallot, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon fish sauce
2 teaspoon oyster sauce
1 teaspoon sesame seed oil
2 teaspoon oil oil
1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

1 package wonton wrappers
1 egg, cracked into a bowl

instructions

1. into your food processor, grind up the pork 2-3 minutes, then toss in the shrimp. Grind for an additional 1-2 minutes. You'll want to be able to see medium chunks of shrimp

2. put in garlic, shallots, and spices/sauces. Grind for 1-2 minutes. Shrimp chunks should be small.

3. put filling into a bowl, and mix with a spoon until all spices/sauces have bee evenly distributed.

4. Taking your wonton wrapper, wet 1/2 of square, diagonally with the egg.

5. Place about 1 tsp of filling into the center of the wrapper.

6. Fold the wrapper along the diagonal so that the egg wetted half meets the dry half. taking the two further corners of the triangle, pull them together to make the little wonton pocket. pinch together with a little egg wash to stick it together.

7. dunk into a pot of boiling water for 6-8 minutes, until floating.

8. enjoy with wonton noodles in a broth or by themselves dipped in some soy sauce!


makes about 3 dozen wontons