Who doesn’t love crunchy deep fried wontons? They are great as party food, snacks or as accompaniment to rice. In Malaysia deep fried wontons are also served with egg noodles, char siu (barbequed pork) and choy sum (asian green) dressed with dark and light soy sauce (a.k.a dry wonton noodle). With ready-made wonton wrappers easily available in the supermarket, making wonton is a breeze. Wonton filling mainly consists of mince pork, prawn, water chestnuts, spring onions, and seasonings. Cornflour and egg white are used to bind the ingredients together. To obtain a good wonton filling texture, do not add in too much mince meat and do not compact the meat like you do in making meatballs. You do not want a filling that’s too dense in this case. I like to put in a lot of roughly chopped water chestnuts and prawns to give the filling a crunchier texture. There are various wonton wrapping methods or techniques available on the internet depending on the wonton shapes. The wonton shape that I usually make resembles a hobo’s bindle which is simple, quick to make, and suitable for beginners.

Ingredients for wonton filling.

Mix well using a fork.

Unlike jiaozi wrappers which are white in color and thicker, wonton wrappers are egg-based, square-shaped and yellow in color.

Scoop, gather & squeeze.

Waiting to be deep fried.

Deep Fried Wontons (Yields: 56 wontons)

Ingredients

• 300 g mince pork
• 170 g prawns (peeled and deveined)
• 230 g can water chestnuts
• 2 stalks spring onions (finely chopped)
• 1 egg white
• 2 tbs cornflour
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 1/2 tsp soy sauce
• 6 dashes of white pepper
• oil for deep frying

Methods

Wonton Filling

1. Drain water chestnuts, roughly chop them and put them into a big bowl.
2. Cut the prawns into cubes and put them into the same bowl containing chopped water chestnuts.
3. In the same bowl, add mince pork, sugar, salt, soy sauce, sesame oil and white pepper. Using a fork, mix them well.
4. Add in cornflour and give it a good mix. Then, add in the egg white and stir until well-combined.

Wonton Wrapping

1. Place wonton wrapper flat on your palm.
2. Using a teaspoon, scoop the filling place it in the middle of the wrapper. Do not put too much filling or else it’ll burst during cooking.
3. Gather all four sides of the wrapper to enclose the filling and give it a gentle squeeze in the middle, just above the sticky filling to seal the wonton. Water is not required to seal the wonton in this method.
4. Heat the oil in a wok over medium-high heat. To test whether the oil is hot enough for deep frying, dip a wooden chopstick into the oil. When the oil is steadily bubbling around the chopstick, it is ready. Working in 4-5 batches, put in the wontons and deep fry until golden. Drain on paper towel. If the oil gets too hot, turn it down slightly so that you do not end up with a dark wonton with uncooked filling.
5. Serve it warm with chilli sauce and rice or egg noddles.

Tonight’s dinner: rice with crispy wontons and seaweed soup. What a satisfying meal! 😀

Tagged: deep fried, dinner, dumplings, egg noodles, food, fried wontons, hobo's bindle, pork, prawn, quick, soup, water chestnut, wonton, wonton noodles, wrapper