Hoisin Celery Wontons in Wonton Soup
This exciting recipe features a flavorful broth containing homemade pork, hoisin and Chinese celery wontons. It couldn’t be simpler to make and this makes a warming meal for the whole family. You can even make extra wontons and freeze them for next time.
This wonton soup recipe calls for soy sauce paste. Soy sauce paste is similar to soy sauce but thicker. If you can’t get it, just use the regular kind. Be careful not to add too much sesame oil; a little really does go a long way. You can find Chinese celery in any Asian grocery store and it is sweeter than regular celery. If you can’t get it then try adding chopped Napa cabbage or black mushrooms instead.
Use a food processor to combine the filling ingredients if you want but use the "pulse" setting because it’s best to leave some texture in the shrimp and meat. You don’t want them to vanish into a puree. You should be able to see the different ingredients when you bite into the wonton. Use egg wonton wrappers or the ones without egg; either works fine here.
Wonton Soup with Hoisin Wontons
Ingredients -
1 lb (450g) ground pork
¼ cup chopped Chinese celery
¼ teaspoon black pepper
1 package of wonton wrappers
2 tablespoons Hoisin Sauce
¼ cup chopped cilantro
4 teaspoons soy sauce paste
2 tablespoons freshly grated ginger
1 teaspoon sesame oil
2 chopped green onions
4 pints chicken, vegetable or seafood broth
Preparation:
Combine everything except the broth, wonton wrappers and green onions in a bowl and use chopsticks or a big fork to mix. Put a teaspoon of this mixture on each wonton wrapper. Roll the wonton wrappers up halfway then fold the two sides back and dab on some water.
Lay the wontons on a baking sheet. Don’t forget to dust your wontons and the baking sheet with flour to keep them from sticking. If you aren’t going to use them right away, you can layer them in a freezer bag and freeze them for up to 2 months. If you want to keep them for 4 months store them in an airtight container.
Heat a pot of broth on the stove. When it boils, turn the heat down to a simmer and add the green onions. Bring a pot of water to a boil and drop in 10 wontons and stir once with a wooden spoon so none stick to the bottom of the pan. When they float to the top, scoop them out of the broth and put them in the soup.
Add 10 more wontons to the hot water and repeat until all the wontons are cooked and in the soup. Serve hot. Be careful when handling the wontons because they can break if you a) overfill them or b) don’t treat them carefully.
Hoisin Celery Wontons in Wonton Soup
Photo Description:
You can see in the picture all the delicious soft hoisin wontons floating in the soup. Some people like to cook their wontons in water, then transfer them into the soup using a slotted spoon, so you can do that if you prefer. Wonton soup recipes vary, but this one is extra tasty with its pork, celery and hoisin wontons. Use any kind of broth, consommé or bouillon for the soup and garnish with cilantro leaves before serving, if you like, to complement the green onions in the wonton soup.
How to Make Consommé
A consommé soup is refined and clear. If you want to make consommé for four people, you will need 2 pints of good quality clear stock, 2 peppercorns, a clove, 2 peeled, de-seeded, sliced tomatoes, and a chopped celery stalk, carrot and onion.
Roast some beef shin or even bones with cartilage, or some chicken, then put the meat and bones in the stock with the other ingredients and cook gently for an hour, not stirring the mixture. Sieve the stock and put it in the refrigerator until the clear liquid and fat separate.
Ladle the clear liquid into a clean pan and leave the fat and sediment in the first pan. If the fat doesn't come out as one lump, you can strain the mixture through a clean tea towel or cheesecloth. As long as you have not stirred it during cooking, it should be clear, not cloudy.
Tips for Tasty Consommé Recipes
Whenever you have leftover meat or vegetables, you can cook them in water until the liquid is flavorful, then sieve the mixture and use that as the base for your wonton soup. Most stocks freeze well too, which is another bonus, and you can pick up beef bones quite cheaply.
If you are using a store-bought stock to make consommé instead of making your own, choose something which is good quality, because if the stock is not of a good quality then the resulting consommé will be no better.
There is no fixed recipe for making a flavorful stock but if you have beef bones or a chicken carcass left over from a meal, as well as some vegetables, you can make a stock out the ingredients you would otherwise have thrown out.