Shrimp Wontons

Recently bought a cookbook on offer from Popular bookstore. It was going at $9.90 for members, compared to the original price of $19.90. As I was reading through it, I was happy to see that most of the ingredients for the dishes can be bought quite easily. I started off with the shrimp wontons recipe, as I have been wanting to make wontons for some time.

Looking at my first attempt at making wontons all by myself, I am glad to say that they didn't turn out too bad. Though wrapping 26 wontons is quite tiring, it was quite an enjoyable process, except maybe for the slight crick on my shoulder after that. Heh.

I was planning to have the wonton with noodles and some vegetables. But seeing the amount that I had come up with, I decided to forgo the noodles and just have 13 wontons each with vegetables. Haha. And maybe because I haven't been cooking for some time, I decided to make the chicken stock (recipe below) myself too, instead of buying a can off the shelf.

Anyway, like I mentioned, I managed to come up with 26 wontons with only half of the stated amount of ingredients (I used 14 medium-sized shrimps) from the recipe. I'm not sure if the author uses bigger pieces of wrappers, or uses smaller shrimps. Just make sure that there are enough wrappers at hand if following the actual amount in the recipe.

Steamed Shrimp Wontons

24 servings

Ingredients :

- 2 egg whites

- 1 cup ground shrimp meat

- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

- 1/4 teaspoon Chinese five-spice

- 1/2 cup finely sliced scallions (spring onions)

- 1 teaspoon finely grated fresh ginger

- 24 square wonton wrappers

Directions :

1) Lightly whisk the egg whites in a large bowl. Add the ground shrimp meat, sea salt, five-spice powder, scallions, and ginger. Stir to combine.

2) Put a heaping teaspoon of the filling mixture into the centre of the wonton wrapper and then seal the edges by moistening them with water, then bring the four corners together.

3) Put the wontons into a bamboo steamer basket lined with oiled waxed paper. Set the basket over a large saucepan of boiling water and steam for 10-12 minutes.

Note : Instead of steaming, I cook my wontons by dropping about 10 at a time into a pot of boiling chicken stock. Cook them for about 3-4 minutes, or until they float to the surface and you can see the pink of the shrimp. Then add in the vegetables, and let the stock reach a slow boil and it's done!