We hosted a Sheva Brachos and we started off the first course with Fried wontons. First of all, fried wontons are delicious, and are easy to make. Buy some wonton wrappers at your local grocery store (I don’t know why, but they are often in the refrigerated produce section). I bought the smaller wontons, if I were to do it over, I think I would buy the larger wrappers, why you ask? Because although smaller ones are cuter they take a lot of time and you can’t put as much filling in. Pick up some cream cheese, and whatever you want to use as your filling. I picked mock crab this time around, although I have done them in the past with apricot – which was also yummy. I made three per person.
- Makes approximately 50:
- 1 Package of Wonton Wrappers
- 1 package of cream cheese
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon salt
- Pinch of Pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon of Parsley
- 1 Package of Mock Crab
Bring cream cheese to room temperature, then mix in the egg, add the salt, pepper and parsley and mix. (If you like Old Bay Seasoning, add some Old Bay – somewhere between a teaspoon to a tablespoon, depending how much you like it). Lay out 9 wrappers in front of you and put 1 teaspoon of filling in the middle (if you are using the larger wontons, then put a tablespoon), then cut up some of your mock crab and put in a couple of pieces. Then, wet the edges of the wonton and close the wonton completely, if you miss a part your filling will leak out while you fry them. I brought all 4 corners together and sealed the sides together, but you can close them up however you like. As you are putting the wontons together, start heating up the oil. You need about an inch and a half of oil covering the bottom of the pan. When the oil is hot enough, the wontons when dropped in will cause the oil to bubble slightly, so you can drop a little piece of wonton in to see if it fries up. If you try to fry the wontons and the oil is not hot enough, you will get soggy oil filled wontons (ick).
While you are working with the wonton wrappers, cover them with a damp (wet and then squeezed out) paper towel. This will stop the wontons from drying out. (You have to squeeze the water out, because too much water = soggy and unusable wontons). I found these wontons good without a sauce, but you could make a quick an easy sauce to go with this. An apricot sauce could be good (see below), as could a spicy mustard sauce, or even a dill sauce.
I have also filled the wrappers with cream cheese and apricot jam. Add a tablespoon of sugar to the cream cheese and egg mixture (and delete the other ingredients) and then add half a teaspoon or teaspoon of apricot jam to each wonton. I then serve an apricot sauce with these wontons (take 1/2 a cup of the apricot jam and add a tablespoon of water to make a thinner sauce, add another tablespoon of water if the sauce is still too thick).
Enjoy!