A wonton party of course!
I know it may not sound like a blast, but in my family, anything involving food is fun. And making wontons together is the most sociable time to bring everyone together.
Usually you will see several generations of the same family sitting around the table wrapping wontons while catching up on the latest gossip.
Although I must admit it is usually the women of the family who do this. The men are usually surrounding the TV catching up on Top Gear or in this case watching a Zombie movie. However sometimes men can have their uses, like mincing the pork (or beating the living day lights out of the pork) with a meat cleaver for the filling of the wontons. Somehow wielding a weapon of some sort bring out their masculinity or inner caveman ego. Either way making wontons is a joint effort from everyone in the family.
We always make plenty so that even after the meal, everyone has a tupperware of wontons to take home with them. Some sort of reward for their hard work or a snack for laters.
We made two versions of wontons. One was a mixture of prawns and pork for us meat eaters and the other was purely prawn for the seafood eaters. I have never made a vegetarian version but may be experimenting soon.
Both versions were yummy, especially when served with soup base noodles. The ultimate comfort food: thin shrimp flavoured noodles in warming chicken soup, blanketed by a layer of wontons and veggies. And of course no wonton noodle soup can ever be without chilli sauce/chilli oil.
I think at the meal we ate about 20 wontons each and a big bowl of noodles on top. By the end of the meal everyone were rubbing their food baby/buddha belly with a satisfied grin on their faces. We all had to loosen a couple of notches on our belts and run round the blocks a few times to burn off the food, but no one forgot to take their tupperware of extra wontons with them. The suffering is so worth it!
Meaty Wonton Noodle Soup
- 2 packs of belly pork (sliced and minced)
- 1 pack of raw shrimps/prawns (minced)
- 1 bunch of spring onions (finely diced)
- small can of water chestnuts (finely diced)
- 1 pack of shitake mushrooms (finely diced)
- 2 eggs (beaten)
- splash of soy sauce
- 1 tbsp fish sauce
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp white pepper
- 4 packs of wonton wrappers
- Shrimp noodles
- Salad leaves, i.e. romaine lettuce, etc.
- Chicken stock
- salt and pepper to taste
- Plenty of chilli sauce
It is best to prepare the vegetables first to avoid cross contamination between foods. Dice up the spring onions, shitake mushrooms and water chestnuts very finely and place in a large bowl.
You can mince up the prawns and pork in a food blender. Or like me do it the old fashion way with a meat cleaver.
Slice the prawns or pork into thin slivers. When all is sliced use the meat cleaver to pound the prawns or pork continuously until it resembles minced meat or paste. This can take a long time and tire your forearm muscles, so best if you can find someone to share this job (in my case my B helped out).
When the prawns and meat are minced put into the large bowl along with the vegetables.
Next add in the marinade: soy sauce, fish sauce, salt and pepper.
Pour in the beaten egg and mix all the ingredients by hand to combine all the flavours. Make sure it is all evenly distributed. 
Wrap the bowl with cling film and leave in refrigerator for at least 2 hours to chill the mixture. When time is up, take the bowl of wonton stuffing into the centre of the table.
Prepare a small bowl of water to help seal the wontons. And take out the wonton wrappers ready for wrapping.
Take one wrapper and place in the middle of one hand.
Place a small teaspoon of stuffing into the centre of the wrapper.
Dip one finger into the bowl of water and smear it along two edges of the wrapper.
Fold up the edges of the wrapper to resemble a triangle and press to dispel the air in the middle.
Lastly pleat the edges of the wrapper for a neater appearance.
Place all the prepared wontons into a dish.
When all ready heat up a pan of boiling water and cook the wontons for 15 minutes. You may need to cook in batches so not to overcrowd the pan. When the outer skin looks less pink after 15 minutes, scoop the wontons out and place into another bowl and cover with cold water to stop the cooking process. This stage will help the pastry wrapper to retain it's texture.
Next heat up some chicken stock in another pan for the soup base and season to taste. Place the cooled down cooked wontons into the soup and allow to boil back up. The soup is now ready and you can turn off the heat.
Place cooked noodles into the bottom of a noodle bowl. Ladle over some wontons to one half of the bowl on top of the noodles. Then place some salad leaves, such as, lettuce to the other half of the bowl. Ladle over the chicken soup; the heat of the soup will wilt the lettuce leaves but retain it's freshness.
Serve with plenty of chilli sauce. And now devour!
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