Geeky drifter at large

Passport & Plate - wontons, two ways

New Zealand | Friday, March 14, 2014 | 5 photos

Ingredients

500g ground pork
1 cup prawns, chopped
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
1 cup shiitake mushrooms
1 cup water chestnuts (approximately half a small can)
1 egg
1/2 t sugar
1/4 t white pepper
1/2 t salt
1 t cornstarch (optional)
wonton wrappers
chicken broth
cilantro
soy sauce

How to prepare this recipe

1. Soak shiitake mushrooms in warm water until soft.
2. Finely chop prawns, onion, mushrooms and water chestnuts – I use a mechanical onion chopper to get all of these ingredients finely chopped quickly.
3. In a bowl, combine ground pork, prawns, onion, mushrooms, water chestnuts, egg, sugar, white pepper and salt. If the mixture isn't holding together add a little cornstarch until the mix sticks together.

To make boiled wontons:
4. Take one wonton wrapper and place a teaspoon of the mixture into a corner. Fold the wrapper over twice making an obtuse triangle shape – the kind that is short but wide. Dab water onto one corner of the wonton wrapper then bring the two ends together, squeezing them together lightly to make sure they stick.
5. Bring a large pot of water to the boil and drop the wontons in. Let them boil for 5 to 8 minutes or until they float to the top.
6. Serve in a bowl of steaming hot chicken broth with cilantro and soy sauce on the side.

To make steamed wontons:
7. Take one wonton wrapper and place a teaspoon of the mixture in the middle. Gather the sides up around it and squeeze the wrapper together to form a moneybag shape.
8. Place them into a hot, oiled steamer making sure that they don't touch each other. Steam for 10 to 15 minutes.
9. Serve with soy sauce.

Makes approximately 75.

The story behind this recipe

Everybody's grandma makes the best... you name it, she makes it. My grandmas came to New Zealand from Hong Kong and China back in the fifties. With them they brought clothes, children and a slew of delicious recipes. Cheung fun, char siu bao, har gao... they cooked it and they cooked it well! And what better thing to pass down to your children than your recipes? But this isn't a story about my grandmas' recipes. This is a story about my mum's wonton recipe.

You see, as much as I loved my grandmas' cooking, their wontons were no match for my mum's – sorry grandma(s)! But hey, we're meant to get better with each generation, right...?

When I was eight years old I remember climbing onto a stool in the kitchen to watch my mum make wontons. It all seemed so easy and the outcome was always tasty. She had to go and do something else around the house and told me to, “Make sure no flies get on the wontons.” And so I did what any self-respecting eight year old would do; I stood guard and karate chopped at the air above the wontons to ward off any flies who dared have a taste.

When I was 15 mum made wontons, steaming them so they were perfect to eat as finger food. I piled 20 on my plate and drowned them in soy sauce – I was obviously going through a growth spurt. She watched, wide-eyed, as I ate them one by one until nothing remained but a plate smeared with soy sauce.

When I was 17 I went off to university. Tucked away in my bag was a recipe for the wontons along with some of the dried ingredients so I wouldn't have to buy them myself – poor student and all that jazz. So at the earliest opportunity I gathered my ingredients, chopped and stirred and folded and steamed and the result...? It didn't taste like mum's. Isn't that always the way?

I spent some time as an adult perfecting my own recipe which is what you have here. But I'll warn you now, they'll never live up to my mum's version so you're just going to have to find her and ask very nicely if she'll cook for you.