Recipe: Wonton or Kreplach

Recipes title

Wonton or Kreplach

Recipe By: Fonds de Cuisine
Categories: Appetizers—Soups—Starches, Pasta and Noodles

1/2 recipe Noodle Dough for Wonton (two balls)

Wonton Filling

1 lb pork ground
4 each mushrooms, dried Shiitake, sliced thin—soaked in hot water
4 each scallions—shredded
4 each water chestnuts, chopped—optional
1/8 cup tree ears dried, sliced after soaking—optional
1 tsp. soy sauce, Tamari
1 dash cayenne pepper
1 tbl water
2 tsp. Cornstarch

Kreplach Filling

8 oz ground beef
8 oz cooked meat, well done, ground
1 tbs chicken fat
1 each medium onion—chopped fine
salt and black pepper

1. For the Wonton filling, mix all ingredients well. For the Kreplach filling, fry the chopped onion in chicken fat and then mix all ingredients well, seasoning with salt and black pepper.

2. Take one well relaxed ball and roll the dough out thin. It should be dimensioned to cut 3 inch squares. If you are doing it by machine, gradually increase the thinness of the settings. Brush the dough lightly with beaten egg and water over the entire surface. Use a pizza cutting knife to cut the dough into 3 inch squares. Put a teaspoon of filling onto each square in the center. Fold the dough in half to form a triangle with the dough enclosed. with the point of the triangle pointing to you, moisten the left corner with a little beaten egg and fold the corners past the center, pressing to seal.

3. Boil in salted water. When the water comes back to a full boil, they are probably done, but check one, especially the pork. They can also be deep fried instead of boiled. Do not cook in the soup, as it will get cloudy.

nb. When I was in Shanghai, I had wonton for breakfast almost every morning. There was a street restaurant on Hong Chow Lou near the campus, that made them right in front of you, and cooked them to order. You got them in a little bowl of salted steaming hot water, with a touch of sesame oil. Perhaps because I was a foreigner, or a steady customer, or because the lady serving liked me, I got a pinch of shredded green onion on mine. No one else did! She would 'pinch' it from the man next to her who was making scallion pancakes (which I loved). I got the nickname "tsung yu bin" from my Chinese friends on the bus to work, as I always got a few of these hot scallion pancakes as well, wrapped up in paper in my book bag to have with hot water when I arrived at the college campus. Someone would say, "What smells good?" "It's tsung yu bin," I would answer. You could smell them right through the bag! It always got a laugh, so someone was sure to ask. Often several of us would answer in concert, "It's tsung yu bin". My observation is that Chinese people enjoy a good laugh as much as a good snack, and they love snacks above all else. Heart ticklers is what they call them. The street food in Shanghai is great.

Notes: and you no longer wonder why Chinese Restaurants do so well in Jewish neighborhoods! Making these was my first job as a second cook. I would roll the dough out over a full wooden topped work table, and cut it, and fill the squares, while a kitchen man came behind me to fold the wontons. While he was folding, I did another table. We made thousands! Half ground cooked meat, half fresh ground raw meat, and plenty of fried diced onions. Don't be afraid to season the mix highly with fresh ground black pepper.