Tom Douglas

A Family Wonton Gets a Facelift/ by Adrienne Lasko, Dahlia Lounge Sous Chef

Every year for New Year’s Day, my mom makes hundreds of wontons for friends and family.  She always fills them with a mixture of pork and beef, water chestnuts, scallions, ginger, garlic, soy, and hoisin.  She deep fries them all while she rolls them and then packs them up for personal delivery with a plum and hoisin sauce.

At the Dahlia, Dezi (also a Dahlia sous chef) created a wonton suitable for the menu and serves it poached in a tsuyu broth.  The wontons are filled with shiitake mushrooms and a cured foie gras. They float in a light tsuyu broth (housemade dashi, soy sauce, and mirin).  The broth and wontons are garnished with roasted honshimeji mushrooms and scallions.

My mother’s wonton recipe:

1 pound ground pork

1 pound ground beef

1 can sliced water chestnuts, finely chopped

1 bunch scallions, chopped

1 thumb ginger, peeled and minced

5 cloves garlic, minced

Soy to taste

Hoisin to taste

Salt and pepper to taste

2 packs store bought wrappers

Mix together all of the ingredients (except wrappers), adding soy and hoisin last.  The soy, hoisin, salt, and pepper are for flavor, so use your best judgment and then form a small patty of the fill and pan fry it (like you would a sausage patty), let it cool, then check for seasoning.  Adjust seasoning if necessary, and then you’re ready to start filling.

To fill the wrappers, you’ll need a small bowl of warm water, the filling, and the wrappers, which you’ll need to keep covered with a damp towel so they don’t dry out.

You’ll work in small batches of 3 to 5 at a time, depending on how quick you are at rolling.

Lay the wrappers flat on the cutting board so they are like a diamond, and then put a small spoonful of the filling in the center of each one.  Wet one of your fingers in the warm water and moisten the two sides of the wrapper that are farthest away from you.  The two wet sides should meet at the corner like two sides of a triangle.  Then fold the wrapper into a triangle, touching the two dry sides to the two wet sides.  It is important at this point to get out any air pockets when you are forming the triangle shape.  Next, you will want to wet your finger again and moisten the right corner of the triangle.  Next, attach the underside of the left corner to the top (moist) side of the right corner… and that should be it!

These wontons are great for steaming, poaching or deep frying. They also freeze well.  To freeze them, lay them all on something flat so they are not touching and stick them in the freezer.  As soon as they are frozen (which shouldn’t take more than an hour), put them into an airtight container and return them to the freezer.

The photos (Editor’s note: these photos are of the Dahlia wonton, not Adrienne’s mom’s recipe, but they illustrate the way to fold a wonton):

Top left- the plain wonton wrappers, laid out on the table

Top middle- won ton wrappers with shiitake mushroom duxelles

Top right- with foie gras

Bottom left- wonton wrapper folded over as a triangle

Bottom right- final shape of wonton

(Editor’s note: Adrienne is another winner in our staff family recipe blog contest)

February 15th, 2010