Wonton Fun

No, I'm not out to domesticate my kids, and this is only our second time making wontons. Or should I call them dumplings? Somehow, "wonton" conjures up the image of the deep-fried version that comes with wonton mee back home!

We didn't deep-fry ours, nor did we steam them like that first time as called for in the recipe from a kids' cookbook (our adapted version's included in the link). Instead, we had them in soup (chicken stock)! I'm a soup person, and see why I think dumplings may be a more appropriate term for how we cooked ours this time round?

If you like, you can add minced ginger, garlic, and scallion to the filling, or the scallion could come later in the soup itself. We didn't put any of these in ours though, simply because they are the kind of stuff our boys will pick out or have me pick out for them, before they'll tuck into their food! And I also left out the sugar, and added a bit of rice vinegar to the basic soya sauce-sesame oil seasoning for the filling, for a more savoury taste. Our filling consisted of minced meat -- I like to use pork or chicken, and shrimp. Some mushroom would have been nice, too, but one child asked me to please leave it out.



There are different ways to do the wrap, and what better way than to leave ours to the boys' own creativity...


Jon made his lot into these neat envelopes, and Ben, with a little help, pinched the sides together for a good seal (some water did the trick, too). There's at least another way -- the one given on the wonton wrap packaging, that goes like this: use a chopstick to make a slight dent in the middle of the triangle, and then flap in the two lower sides so they overlap slightly. But it can be a little tricky, especially if you've packed your wonton quite full, as then, the filling may ooze out from the sides!

Before and after the dumplings were cooked...


Broccoli was what we had at hand, and ended up having our soup with. And to me, it is one vegetable versatile enough to go with most things. If you like your soup to be more "oriental-looking", you may prefer a more Asian vegetable.

So then, this was the dinner we had, on a less hurried evening with no school the next day, and when homework didn't "get in the way" of dinner preparation, or me roping in the boys to help out in the kitchen! Um, actually, it was the dining table we used, for how much more workspace it offered!



Not surprisingly, the dumplings tasted extra yummy -- like little pockets of fun they turned out to be, with Jon giving them two thumbs-up, and Ben, (not the only one) asking for seconds!



Maybe we'll put just shrimp (with or without mushrooms) for the filling the next time... my favourite's always "har kau", but that's another dumpling, for another day! =)