Dumbo in the Kitchen - #5: Wonton

Dear all bachelors out there,

If you have mastered at least one type of clear soup, next, you should probably learn to make wontons (wantans? 云吞) so you don't always eat noodle soup. Or vermicelli soup. Get some variety going with wontons!!! :-)

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For the soup, on this occasion, what I cooked was pork rib soup with yam (true yam, see the previous post) and shitake mushroom.

It is very easy to make wontons. Just buy some wonton skins (in the local wet market, look for it at any stall that sells a myriad of fish balls, tofu, bean sprouts, yong-tau-foo stuffs, etc.), some minced pork (I can't imagine what beef wontons or chicken wontons taste like, to be honest), season the minced pork, wrap in wonton skins, done.

I usually add some (not too much, though!) tapioca starch to the minced pork so it is sticky enough to hold the folded wonton skins in place.

On this particular occasion, I also chopped up some of the shitake mushroom to mix into the minced pork, and before I laid on the minced pork in the wonton skin, I put in a leaf of cilantro (coriander) for that extra kick in taste and also in presentation (you can see from the picture below that the cilantro leaves rendered jade-like appearance to the wontons).


Pour in some soup (with pork rib, yam chunks and mushroom slices), and you have a really satisfying bowl of wontons. Yum! :-)


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As a side dish for lunch that day, I put aside some slices of yam and mushroom and a bit of the minced pork for a simple pasta dish.

First, I boiled some fusillis to just before it gets el dente. I strained them and set them aside for later.

Then I fried those yam slices, mushroom slices and minced pork, seasoned according to a Chinese fried dish (you know, a bit of salt, soy sauce, a bit of sugar, a bit of cooking rice wine - go for Shaoxing Huadiao, 绍兴花雕 - a bit of white pepper, a bit of red chili if available). I also used the pork rib soup as stock (the purpose of the stock, for this "fried" dish, is for the fusillis to soak up the soup for added flavor).

The last step was to add in the fusillis to soak up the soup. But don't overcook it. Remember, pastas should be "el dente". Soggy pastas are unbearable.

Just before serving, I garnished the dish with some fresh cilantro leaves.


However, you (my dear bachelor friends out there) do not have to prepare this side dish. The wonton soup by itself is sufficient as a satisfying meal. I only made this pasta dish out of curiosity: what would yam taste like when made as a fried dish?

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For dinner that night, we had basically the same thing, with more greens as accompaniment. The small bowl on the left contains chopped cilantro, spring onion, red chili and garlic as sort of a "dip" (well, the word "dip" is only applicable if you pour soy sauce into the mixture; but on this occasion, I decided not to add soy sauce; so, it's like a "dry dip", if you know what I mean).

The chopped spring onion in the fancy butterfly dish is for sprinkling onto the hot soup.



The verdict? A very delicious and satisfying dinner that was also nutritionally balanced, with the emphasis on protein (minced pork) and vegetables. Carbohydrate intake is minimized, in comparison to a bowl of noodle soup with the same soup base.