Good grief! I remember when all we had to choose from when I was young in western PA were canned products like Chun King® Chicken Chow Mein in the supermarket along with dry crunchy things that were sold as noodles. Those excuses for Chinese food were disgusting as they tasted bad and they contained almost no chicken. Thank God I escaped that limited environment! Now back to the present story.
I did some reasonable Chinese cooking in the past, but my repertoire was dismally limited. It was limited to Egg Foo Yung, Sweet and Sour Pork and Shrimp Toast.
A final historical note is appropriate before getting to the wonton soup recipe. Back in the early 1970’s I had a great work friend who was Chinese, Dora (Lin) Clark. We often ate lunch in local Chinese restaurants in Wilmington, Delaware. On being invited to Dora’s and her husband Dick’s home for dinner I learned just how unique top quality Chinese cooking can be. Along with a variety of other wonderful dishes Dora served to my wife Pat and me was her own homemade wonton soup. It was delicious! It was vastly better than any wonton soup I ever ate in a restaurant and I never forgot about Dora’s soup. Or Dora!
As you can see, my memory of great food and a great friend translated yet again into me deciding to make wonton soup. The results to my great happiness were wonderful. Peggy is really impressed. I am delighted. If you make this soup you too will be delighted.
I begin by providing you a recipe for making the wonton wrappers. You may choose to make them or to buy them in a supermarket for about $3 for 50 wrappers. My advice? Buy them to save the time/labor of making them.
Wonton Wrapper Ingredients: (Makes a lot of wonton wrappers)
4 cups of flour
2 jumbo or four large eggs
1 1/2 tsp. of salt
1 cup of water
Cornstarch for surface dusting during rolling and cutting
Wonton Wrapper Directions:
Sift the flour into a large electric mixer bowl.
Whisk together the eggs, salt and water.
Start the mixer on low speed and gradually pour in the egg mixture. Then increase the speed to medium.
Mix for about a minute. If the dough is too dry it will not form into a ball of dough. If that happens then add one tablespoon of water and mix for an additional minute. Repeat if necessary but do not add too much water overall or the dough will be sticky, and that is not good.
Remove the mixer beater and replace it with a dough hook.
Run the mixer for one to two minutes to knead the dough. The dough should not be at all sticky. If it is then add a small amount of flour, like one tablespoon, and knead the dough for half a minute longer. Be sure the flour is well mixed into the dough. Repeat the flour addition if necessary.
Remove the dough and separate it into eight pieces. Flatten the pieces to a thickness of about 1/2" and a width of about 1" and wrap them individually in plastic wrap. Let the dough rest for one hour at room temperature. NOTE: I use that hour to make the wonton filling that I will use later, which saves a lot time overall in the making of wonton soup.
I use a pasta maker attachment with my KitchenAid® mixer to convert each dough piece into one about two feet long and four inches wide, and about 1/32nd of an inch thick. You may have to roll out each piece of dough with a rolling pin. I recommend doing that using a long piece of plastic wrap on a hard counter surface that has been liberally dusted with cornstarch. You may also want to lightly dust the top surface of the dough while you are rolling it to a thickness of about 1/16th of an inch or less, to facilitate rolling.
Use a sharp knife to cut squares of dough roughly four inches to a side and place each square in a pile, remembering to dust the top of each piece lightly with cornstarch before adding the next piece to the stack.
You are now ready to proceed with making the wonton soup.
Ingredients: (Makes six generous or eight regular adult servings)
Wonton ingredients:
12 ounces of lean, finely ground pork
1 cup of minced cabbage
2 tablespoons of minced ginger
1 tablespoon of minced garlic
1 tablespoon of Chinese rice wine (Shaoxing) or Japanese Saki or Mirin
6 scallions, sliced thinly crosswise, then chopped
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
50 wonton wrappers (one typical package)
1 egg, lightly beaten in a bowl
1/4 cup of water
Soup base ingredients:
9 cups of chicken broth
1 tsp. of sea salt
3 scallions, finely cut into 1/8" wide slices crosswise, including most of the green part
1 tbsp. of soy sauce
1 tbsp. of toasted sesame oil
24 frozen pre-cooked small to medium size shrimp, shelled and deveined. (You can use anything that appeals to you for taste and appearance in the soup. Some folks use slivers of roasted pork).
2 cups (packed) of shredded Chinese cabbage (I use regular cabbage or sometimes Napa. Baby Bok Choy can also be used.)
Directions:
Make an egg wash by whisking the raw egg in a shallow bowl, then adding 1 teaspoon of water, and then whisk again for one minute.
Make the wontons. Combine the ground pork, minced cabbage, ginger, garlic, scallions, rice wine and 2 tablespoons of soy sauce in a bowl with the 1/4 cup of water. Mix well.
Open the package of wonton wrappers (which are really just very thinly rolled dough slices cut into 3" x 3" squares, and lightly dusted with cornstarch to keep them from sticking together), about 50 per package.
Put a wonton wrapper in the palm of your hand and put about 2 tsp. of the filling into the center. Then use one finger of your other hand to dip into the egg wash and put a thin coating of egg wash along the perimeter of two adjacent sides of the wrapper about ½ inch wide. Fold the wonton into a triangle shape, squeezing the air out as you press the wrapper edges together going from one end to the other. Set the wonton on a dinner plate and repeat the process until all the filling mixture is used.
It is your choice how much or how little filling you use for each wonton. Note that anything more than 2 tsp. of filling per wrapper will make the proper closing and sealing more difficult, and perhaps not possible. Note also that the amount of filling per wrapper determines how many wrappers you will need to use, so the number 50 shown in the ingredient list is variable.
Now make the soup base. Put all the soup base ingredients except the scallion pieces into a 6 quart soup pot. Bring the mixture up to a low boil on high heat, then reduce the heat to low.
Put all of the wontons into the soup base a few at a time with light stirring.
Bring the soup base with wontons to a gentle boil and cook for five minutes. Add the sliced scallions and cook for one additional minute.
Ladle the soup into wide soup bowls, making sure each bowl has an even/equal mixture of soup base ingredients and wontons, and serve it. You and your guests will be delighted. It is very attractive and a great tasting soup.
Enjoy!