Shrimp & Pork Wontons

So I haven't posted in foreverrrrrr to this blog because a LOT has happened in the past year, other than the COVID19 pandemic, of course. Earlier this year we moved to Illinois because my hubby got a new job and everything changed after that. We quit our jobs, he started his new job, we sold our house in New Jersey, bought a new house in Illinois and moved over here within the span of a couple months. Looking back on it now, I don't even know how we managed such a feat, but it certainly helped that his new company paid for all of the expenses and moving company. It's crazy how much stuff we'd accumulated over the short span of a few years, and so I got rid of a TON of stuff and still managed to move with a giant truckload! We've been living in Illinois since May now, and I have just started to get back into the groove of things, in terms of doing things that I wanted to do, for myself.

Since moving out here, we realized our town does not have many good Asian food options, and we did try some of the offerings around, though none of it memorable. I craved all the things we usually had easy access to in NJ and NYC, and being out here all alone really made me miss real, authentic foods from my culture. If we wanted anything remotely good, we'd have to drive about 2 hours to Chicago to find something. There is a town about an hour from us with slightly more authentic Chinese food, but it's still just so-so. So now, I end up making a lot of the foods we crave. Within the first 2 months or so, I made hundreds and hundreds of assorted dumplings and wontons, one of our favorite foods, which brings me to today's recipe post!

Wontons (雲吞) are a favorite in our family and a type of dumpling that I have fond memories of. These dumplings are a favorite of my father's and his favorite were from a very specific no frills restaurant that he would frequent in Hong Kong that served up "Ping Pong ball sized" wontons filled to the brim with fresh shrimp mixed with a touch of pork and served in a delicious clear broth. Cheap, fast, and delicious was the name of the game when it came to food in Hong Kong--especially street food or casual food. Nowadays, we always reminisce about how delicious the ping pong ball wontons were from Hong Kong whenever we have wontons or make them at home!

Traditional wontons are dumplings that are typically filled with pork, shrimp, or a combination of both. In Hong Kong and China, wonton soup often includes 大地鱼 or bian yu, also known as dried sole or flounder that adds a real hit of umami when the wontons are submerged in it. Some dried flounder powder is sometimes added to the wonton filling as well. It's been pretty hard to find this dried flounder powder in the USA, but with some online googling, I'm sure you can find it if you truly want an authentic wonton experience. For this recipe, we don't use dried flounder powder, but it still tastes great and goes wonderfully with noodle soup or on its own.

In my recipe, we use shrimp and pork, some Chinese staple seasonings and sauces, and ginger. The trick to a shrimp-ilicious wonton is to mix  a combination of chopped chunk shrimp and pounded shrimp paste with some ground pork. ​

With 2 pounds of shrimp, I clean and devein all of them, removing the shells, and then chop 1 pound into small chunks, and then with the remaining 1 pound of shrimp, I take the back of my knife and "pound" each individual shrimp into a paste. This results in a  wonton with a "crunchy" and smooth mouthfeel from the 2 varying textured shrimp filling.

(You will see fibers pulling apart into strands). This process of mixing until the pork is "起膠" or "hei gao" in Cantonese, which means that it will have a good firm, and "bouncy" texture when cooked. When a dumpling filling does not "hei gao", it will have a loose texture that results in a bad mouth-feel when you eat it. Here's a photo of what "hei gao" looks like.

Once your filling is ready, you'll spoon some onto some thin wonton wrappers which you can find at most Asian markets, and now increasingly can be found in the refrigerated sections of non-Asian supermarkets. I usually find them where they keep their tofu selections, which is also where they keep egg roll wrappers if you need to find some! I like to fold my wontons in half, then bring the ends together to "hug" the wonton.

I love to wrap a whole bunch of wontons and dumplings in one sitting so that I can store them in the freezer. After you are done wrapping them, place each finished dumplings onto a flat pan lined with parchment paper. After they are frozen, you can throw them into a freezer gallon bag to save space in the freezer.

It's so easy to use these for a quick meal or if we don't feel like really cooking--just pop them out of the freezer and throw them in some boiling water until they float! I've also discovered that wontons and dumplings get super crispy and delicious if you spray them with oil and put them in the air fryer at 380 degrees F for about 8 minutes, then flip and fry for 2-6 more minutes until they reach your preferred doneness. Healthy and yummy with no deep frying and making a mess in the house? Yes please!

I definitely recommend eating this with the recommended spicy chili garlic dipping sauce and I hope you enjoy this wonton recipe!

SHRIMP & PORK WONTONS
INGREDIENTS

Wonton filling:

• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1.5 tsp white pepper
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp oyster sauce
• 2 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 2 lbs shrimp, cleaned and deveined
• 2 lbs ground pork
• 1 tbsp grated ginger

Other:
1 package of wonton wrappers (50-60 wrappers)

Spicy Chili Garlic Dipping Sauce:

• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/2 tbsp grated ginger
• 2-3 finely chopped spicy chili peppers (Thai red chili peppers or jalapeno works well)
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp black vinegar
• 1 tbsp kecap manis (thick sweet soy sauce)
• 2 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp white pepper
• 1 tsp red chili oil or prickly ash oil

DIRECTIONS:

1. Prepare the shrimp--ensure it is cleaned by removing the veins and shells and then take half the shrimp and reserve half for later. Using the back of a large knife, smack the shrimp flat on the cutting board, creating a paste. Add the whole shrimp and the paste shrimp together.
2. Mix all of the wonton ingredients (pork, shrimp mixture, salt, white pepper, sugar, oyster sauce, cornstarch, grated ginger and sesame oil) in a bowl. Very vigorously mix together until the pork becomes sinewy and sticky as you mix it. (Until it "hei gao").
3. Once all mixed, start making your wontons. The easiest is to put a small dab of filling in the middle of the wonton wrappers, line the wrapper with water and then fold the wonton wrapper over the filling in half, pressing the corners together to form a triangle. You can leave it as is, or you can bring the outer 2 corners on the left and right together to "hug" your wonton.
4. I recommend boiling 1-2 wontons to try before moving forward, to ensure that your filling is to your taste. At this point, you can add more seasoning as you see fit. Do keep in mind, if you plan on dipping the dumplings in sauce later, you will likely not need to add more seasoning.
5. To cook the wontons, boil them for about 4-5 minutes or until they float to the surface. You can either cook your wontons right away to enjoy for your meal, or you put them onto a tray and freeze them. Once frozen, you can put all the wontons into a bag and keep them in the freezer for when you are ready to eat them. Do not break the wontons apart if they are frozen together--this will break the delicate skins. When you boil them from frozen, they will come apart on their own.
6. Best enjoyed with a clear chicken broth or vegetable broth, with noodle, or by themselves covered in chili oil, soy sauce and peanut sauce!

I hope you enjoy this recipe, it's one of our favorites!

Until next time,
​Jenny