Of Wantons, wontons and dumplings

It can be spelt either way, "wanton" or "wonton".  Nowhere close to being promiscuous, the "wonton" is how the Cantonese would call the dumpling which looks like a-cloud-that-can-be-easily-swallowed.  God bless the Chinese language.  They only needed TWO characters to explain all that!

But what I'm about to unleash is a dumpling formula with a crunch.  I like to make my wontons big and crunchy.  Then you can stuff in all the yummy goodness you want in it.

This is my mom's recipe, and over the years I have ... well, upsized it.  Here's what you need.


Ingredients

• 5 to 7 water chestnuts, peeled and diced finely 
• 200g of minced pork
• 10 prawns, shelled and chopped
• 2 spring onions, chopped
• 1 packet of wonton skin (squares)
• soya sauce and pepper to taste
• 1 cube of chicken stock

Method

1. Mix minced pork, prawns, water chestnut and spring onion together. 
2. Add soya sauce (I add about 2 to 3 tablespoons of soya sauce.  You can adjust it to your taste) and pepper to taste.
   
3. Mix well.
   
4. Spoon a full teaspoon of the mixture onto one half of a piece of wanton skin as shown, leaving space on the other half for the skin to fold over.
5. Wet the edges of the skin with water and fold the dumpling into a rectangle.  I can make up to 25 dumplings.
6. Bring a pot of water to boil and add 1/2 to 1 cube of chicken stock.  Add the dumplings one at a time.  The dumplings will float to the surface when they're cooked. 

They look like pillows!

Served with boiled PaChoy or Chinese Cabbage

These lovely wonton dumplings go great with cut chill and soy sauce.  They look heavenly too, just like cloud pillows!  Thus the reason for the wonton being directly translated as "cloud swallow".  And talking of clouds, it reminds me of God's divine presence and protection over his people lead by Moses in the wilderness (Exodus 13:21); a pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night.  

I normally cook the noodles separately and then add the dumplings and the soup only when I'm ready to eat it.  It's a fun dish to try and the chopped up bits of the water chestnut gives this dumpling a fun crunch.