Chef Daddy Cooks Food Your Kids Will Eat: Wonton Party!

My kids brought home a book called Dumpling Soup from the library, and, enthralled by the concept of dumpling soup eaten by the Korean-Hawaiian-American family in the story, asked if we could make something similar. Of course they wanted to leave out the tripe and octopus also mentioned in the book, so we didn't bother with those things (although I assured them they'd love octopus; they were both skeptical about that).

I decided an easy course of action was to put together some wontons, since they're dumplings of a sort, are traditionally eaten in soup, and are made of ingredients that you can get at the grocery store. Furthermore, they seemed like something the children could help make with minimal effort. So, after picking up a pack of Azumaya wonton wrappers and some other ingredients, we were ready to start our wonton party. True to my prediction, they were also really easy to put together, and even easier to eat.

Having some chicken on hand in the refrigerator, I decided we were going to have chicken-based wontons. A search on the Web (who needs cookbooks these days?) turned up a number of recipes. Here's what we ended up making, based on a recipe on a website called Homemade Chinese Soups, which has several other wonton recipes, as well as a guide to folding the things:

Chicken Wonton Soup

The wontons

• 1-1/4 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs, cut into pieces
• 1 package square wonton wrappers
• 2–3 green onions, chopped
• 1/2-inch piece of root ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• water for cooking
• egg white or water for sealing wontons

The soup

• 4 cups chicken stock (1 aseptic package of broth)
• 2 cups water
• small piece of root ginger
• 1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
• 3 green onions, chopped
• 4 cups coarsley chopped chinese (napa) cabbage or bok choy
• A few drops sesame oil
• salt to taste

First, prepare the filling. Put the scallions, ginger, and water into a food processor and blend until combined. Pour into a container and set aside. Put the chicken, salt, and sugar into the food processor and pulse to grind and mix together. Add the reserved water/scallion/ginger mixture slowly until combined. Put the filling into a bowl and add pepper, sesame oil, and, lastly, the cornstarch. Stir to combine.

Now that your filling is finished, you're ready to start assembling, which is where the children and the party come in. We sat at the kitchen table where each person got a plate, a stack of wonton wrappers, and a little bowl of water. First. orient your wrapper on the plate so it looks like a diamond. Put a teaspoon of filling (not too much!) in the center, then dip your finger in the water and "paint" two of the edges with water. Fold the wonton over and you'll have a little neat triangular package. You can stop here if you like, or you can take two corners and fold them inward, tortellini style, which looks pretty cool. Repeat until either all the wrappers or filling is gone.

The kids both had fun with this, although my wontons looked a bit more uniform than theirs. But that's all part of the fun. And it all looks the same to your stomach, right?

You might find that you now have a ton of wontons. This is OK! They freeze well, and can go right from your freezer to boiling water. We had so many that we decided to fry some up for a treat. Heat some oil and carefully drop the wontons in; when they float to the top and are golden and crispy they're done. Drain and let cool a few minutes, and then eat with the dipping sauce of your choice. Oh, and do not try to fry the wontons you froze earlier—bad things will happen.

The rest of the wontons were boiled in a large pot of salted water for five minutes or until they floated to the top. We made a simple soup by combining all the listed ingredients except the green onions and sesame oil, bringing them to a boil and then simmering until the cabbage was done. Add green onions and sesame oil, ladle into bowls, and then a few cooked wontons. Tasty!

Make sure you don't just throw the wontons into your soup and boil them in there. They'll turn the soup all cloudy and yucky, especially if some wonton filling leaks out, which happens from time to time.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Oldie; CC Attribution ShareAlike 3.0