Wantons - Weekend Cooking

A visit to my uncle and his family always means one thing - food ... and lots of it. My last trip up I made wantons. Or should I say, we made wantons. It's always nice to have a few helpers about the kitchen :)

We decided on a mix of pork and prawns for our wantons. Minced pork, diced prawns, water chestnuts, chives and a dollop of grated ginger.

A good mix of all the ingrediants with a good splash of soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame seed oil and white pepper. The mixture was then left to rest for an hour or so to let the flavours fuse.

I also mixed up a batch of wanton filling minus the pork for my cousin LH who isn't at all that keen on meat.

The wantons all prettily wrapped up and the sides sealed shut with a paste made with a touch corn starch and a drop or two of water.

The extra pork and prawn wantons were rolled into little balls to be cooked in a broth along with the soup wantons.

Deep fried to golden brown gorgeous-ness. There was a ton more wantons, some prettier than others but all just as delicious. No photos of the wantons and meatballs in the soup, I'm afraid. They were not at all photogenic.

The Big Soup

Every now and then I crave for a big bowl of noodle soup. Sometimes I'm lazy and reach for a packet of instant noodles - Maggie Mee preferably or if I'm really hungry, one of those huge packets of Korean noodles. But then there are times when I feel like putting more love and care into the cooking pot.

The shop bought wanton skins were filled with minced pork that had ginger, garlic, soy sauce, oyster sauce and a touch of sesame oil mixed in. The fish cakes were shop bought from Chinatown and came in a squidgy fish paste block for shape-your-own fishcakes. I get really excited whenever I see these - I like most things processed :) but these were slightly disappointing. A tad too bouncy for my liking (I like the harder, chewier version) and really over-salted, though I happily ate my way through the whole packet. Perhaps one day when I'm really feeling the love and devotion toward the cooking pot, I'll make my own fish paste.

Putting it all together

• Cook some noodles (your choice) according to the directions on the packet. Drizzle with a little oil so that the noodles don't stick together. Set aside.
  
• Bring to boil a nice potful (half a potful, quarter of a potful.... whichever takes your fancy) of stock up to the bowl. I had a bag of home-made chicken stock sitting in the back of my freezer so I used that.
• Drop in the wantons (they freeze rather well and can be dumped into a pot straight out of the freezer-they only need a few extra minutes). Let the stock come back to a boil. Put in the vegetables, harder bits of stalks first and softer bits of leaves last. Be careful not to prod the wantons too hard, the skins are delicate after cooking.
• When the wantons float to the top and their skins start to get wrinkly, it means that they are cooked. I usually give them a minute or two extra to make sure :)
  
• Spoon in the fish paste into the stock. It's the easiest way without getting your hands messy. *tip* Wet your spoon after dropping every spoonful of fish paste into the pot. This ensures that the sticky mixture slides neatly into the soup and not stick stubbornly to the spoon. The fish paste only takes a minute to cook.
• Get some big bowls ready. Divide the noodles into the bowls. Dish out the goodies from pot. Sprinkle on some fried shallots or garlic if you like. Slurp away! :)