Wonton Soup

This wonderful Chinese soup is fantastic and fast. I adapted this recipe a little from the one on Joylicious website. I was very inspired by her touching story of her mom but even more from her beautiful photography. I loved the Asian flavors and warm goodness of this soup.

Probably the hardest part is finding the wonton skins in the grocery store... but you can do that ahead of time. My first suggestion is to try the produce area... over where the fresh herbs and bagged salads are. That's where I found mine, because they are often refrigerated. If not, try the Asian food section of the store, by the bamboo shoots and shiitake mushrooms that I also used in this recipe (which are totally optional).

If you do decide to use shiitake mushrooms, most of the time you will only find them in the dried state. Start off by soaking the mushrooms in hot water for at least 30 min.

First start your water on the stove to get it boiling. Mix the pork and chopped shrimp (I used precooked frozen shrimp-thawed and squeezed out the extra moisture) and all the flavorings together in a bowl. Then you are ready to wrap the wontons. There are many ways to wrap a wonton, but here is my visual tutorial of how I did it:

Then they are ready to cook. Wontons cook up very fast. You do want to boil the wontons in water a separate pot than the broth because the starch on the outside of the wonton wrapper and sometimes filling spilling out causes the liquid to get cloudy and ruins the clear broth look of your soup.

If you are only feeding 2-3 people , you might have wontons left over. These can be frozen and used another day. Or, if you like, half the ingredients and make half as many wontons. The wrappers do dry out quickly so if you are storing them for later use (they make great ravioli or tortellini), wrap them in a moist towel or put a wet paper towel in a ziplock baggie with them to keep them moist.

Wonton Soup
1 lb. ground pork
6 oz shrimp (chopped finely)
1 egg white
1 TBSP cornstarch
1 tsp sesame or canola oil
1 TBSP rice wine vinegar
1 TBSP soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp ginger (minced)
1 tsp salt and pepper
1 package wonton wrappers
6 cups chicken broth
5 reconstituted shiitake mushrooms, sliced (optional)
few bamboo shoots sliced (optional)
salt and pepper if needed
1 stalk green onion, chopped, for garnish

Put a pot of water on stove and bring to a boil. In a different pot, heat chicken broth, mushrooms and bamboo shoots. While heating, put first 10 ingredients in a bowl and mix well to combine for wonton filling. Wrap wontons by putting 1 tsp of filling in middle of wrapper and moisten the edges of wonton with water, then press with finger. Drop prepared wontons into the boiling water and cook for 3-5 minutes (until they float) and remove with slotted spoon. Serve by placing several wontons in bowl and pouring warm broth over top. Garnish with green onion.