Wonton Soup

Posted byNoriePosted inRecipe, SoupTags:,

Making wonton filling is the same as making filling for the Sho Mai or dumplings with a few more ingredients added.

Ingredients for the wonton:

  • 1/2 lb. ground pork
  • ¼ lb. medium shrimp with shells, with or without the heads
  • 1 egg
  • 2 scallions (green onions) chopped
  • 2 more scallions chopped, add the white parts to the mix, reserve the chopped green parts for the soup at the table

  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 2 tsp. light soy sauce
  • 1/2 tsp. Black pepper
  • 2 tsp. Shaohsing rice cooking wine or Sherry
  • 1 tsp. Sesame oil
  • 1 pkg. thin wonton wrappers

Peel the shrimp and reserve the shells and heads.  Chop the shrimp in small pieces and add to the pork and the rest of the ingredients.  Mix and blend all the ingredients until well mixed.

Boil some water in a medium size pot, about half the pot. (This is to pre-cook the wontons and will be discarded).

Place a scant teaspoon of the pork mixture in wonton wrappers, fold over and fold both sides. (You can be creative in wrapping the filling by doing it from a corner diagonally). Don’t put too much filling in the wrapper. Drop it into the boiling water as you wrap.  Lightly stir the bottom of pot to prevent them from sticking to the pot.  They are done when they float. Remove them with a slotted spoon and put on a plate without letting them stick together. Do them in batches to avoid crowding the pot.  Cook all. You can freeze the unused wontons for later use or they can be eaten without the broth like Sho Mai or Chinese dumplings.

For the soup base:

In a small pot, boil the shrimp shells in about 1 cup of water for a couple of minutes. Strain and reserve the liquid. You will use 1/4 cup of this stock to make the broth.

Boil one 32 oz. carton (4 cups) of chicken broth with 1/4 cup of the shrimp broth in a pot to make broth for 4 servings.

Add:

  • 1/8 tsp. of Chinese white pepper (this is spicy)
  • ½ tsp. salt or to taste
  • ¼ tsp. sugar
  • 1 tsp. Sesame oil
  • 2 thin slices ginger

Simmer for a minute or two.  Meanwhile, put 4 to 5 pieces of wontons and a few chopped green onions in each bowl.  Ladle the boiling hot broth into the wontons, garnish with green onions and serve. 

If the broth and wontons have cooled, you can heat the broth back to boiling and drop in the pre-cooked wontons and serve with green onions in the bowl for garnish and flavor.   

Homemade stock is what I used and it is a combination of chicken and pork. Shrimp broth is optional but the addition of it makes it better. 

Pre-cooking the wontons in plain water is done so that the starch and flour of the wonton wrappers do not make the broth cloudy. Also, if the meat and shrimp were previously frozen, refreezing uncooked meat is risky.