Cantonese-style Fried Wontons
There's a few different ways that you can fry up a wonton. This way is our personal favorite.
Click here to jump to how to make wonton wrappers for frying
Click here to jump to durian-stuffed modern meme-food filling
I have probably overly developed opinions on the topic of deep fried wontons.
Everybody loves a deep-fried wonton, of course, but they’re among my favorite dishes to order at a Cantonese restaurant. Given that they’re a perennial foreigner favorite, I’m probably living up to somebody’s stereotype, somewhere… but they’re just a fantastic snack to have alongside a cold beer, and — I have to say — particularly excellent next to a bowl of good Cantonese congee.
But to me, not all fried wontons are created equal. I’ve felt that there are general three major categories of fried wontons that you can find outside at restaurants:
Hefty Doughy Wontons. If you’ve mostly had fried wontons in the context of American takeout-style Chinese food, this is likely the style of wonton that you’ve enjoyed. I don’t hate this style of wonton, as the thick wrapper confers a tangible advantage: it allows you to pack a veritable meatball’s worth of filling inside. Still, the thickness has a downside — when frying, the wonton skin can often end up rather hard (if aiming for crunch) or doughy (if aiming for proper doneness). After all, there’s a reason we don’t deep fry Biang Biang noodles.
Airy Wafery. This is an increasingly common sight in fried wontons in Guangdong, and I can’t stand it. Steph doesn’t understand my angst on the subject — she rather enjoys them, and they do have the advantage of being lighter and less filling. They’re made by using pre-packaged spring roll wrappers as the wonton wrappers: store bought spring roll wrappers keep better and can produce a higher quality end result than store bought wonton wrappers, so I understand the logic. But when I’m ordering deep fried wontons, I want a deep fried wonton — not some sort of spring roll-wonton Frankenstein.
Thin Crispy. This type of wonton is my goldilocks. It’s made by deep frying a thin-skinned Cantonese wonton, and it’s got this sort of wonderfully crispy blistered exterior. Because of the thin skin, you unfortunately can’t stuff a whole meatball inside — generally you’re looking at about a ½ tsp worth of a simple pork filling — but that small amount makes for dead simple wrapping procedure, and the wonton skin itself is absolutely perfect.
So today we wanted to show you how to make thin, crispy wontons… but I do want to emphasize that none of these approaches are intrinsically superior. I have my personal preference, as you likely have yours! If you are looking for hefty fried wontons, this recipe strikes me as proper. And if you would like to see how to make an airy wafery recipe, you can check this one out on YouTube.
In this post, we’ll teach you (1) how to make the wrapper, as this style of deep fried wonton does need homemade wrappers (2) how to make a basic, classic pork filling (3) how to make a rather silly Durian filling, and finally (4) how to wrap, deep fry, and serve them.
Making the Wrapper
In a bowl, mix:
100g AP flour (中筋面粉)
¼ tsp (1g) salt
⅛ tsp (0.5g) sodium carbonate (碱面)1
Once mixed, add in
50mL water
and knead for ~2 minutes to get a rough ball. Set aside for 40 minutes to let the gluten develop.
Dust and flatten the dough. Pass through a pasta maker at the widest setting, then fold in half. Repeat passing and folding a total of seven times to strengthen the dough.
Swap the pasta maker to setting three. Pass it through, then cut in half. Pass each half through the second smallest setting.
If you were making hefty-doughy wrappers, you could stop here. To make thin-crispy wrappers, thoroughly dust the dough sheet once again and pass through at the thinnest setting.
Slice the thin dough sheets into roughly 6-7cm squares to get wonton wrappers.
Making the Pork Filling
Place
100g ground pork, preferably roughly 80/20
onto a chopping board. With a knife or cleaver, chop the mince for 2-3 minutes, periodically folding the mince over itself. We are looking for the mince to turn into a finer paste, but no need to be too obsessive.
Add to a bowl, together with
⅛ tsp salt
⅛ tsp sugar
⅛ tsp chicken bouillon powder (鸡精) -or- MSG (味精)
A good sprinkle (~¹⁄₁₆ tsp) of white pepper powder (白胡椒粉)
A mix of ½ tsp cornstarch (生粉) and ½ tsp Shaoxing wine (料酒/烧酒)
And stir in one direction only for ~2 minutes to incorporate. Then, ‘dat’ the mixture by throwing it against the bowl 10-15 times.
Making a Durian Filling
So as we discussed in the accompanying video, this filling is basically… modern meme food. This is our take on the concept, but word of warning that it’s a touch intense as we’ll need to make a Durian cream custard. We had fun with this and it’s good enough that I would make it again, but definitely note that (1) it is not traditional and (2) the technique employed was simply the way we personally cracked this nut.
Place
80g Durian flesh
onto a paper towel and into a bowl. Microwave the Durian on low for 2.5 minutes to remove a bit of moisture.
As that’s cooling down, thoroughly mix together a custard of:
30g thoroughly whisked egg
¼ tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
30g cornstarch
Making sure that there are no clumps of starch that remain. Once the microwaved Durian is cooled down, mix that in as well and transfer to an oven-safe bowl. Bake for 12 minutes at 170C, mixing once halfway through.
To that mixture, mix in
80g cream cheese
and once combined, optionally mix in an additional
20-30g Durian flesh2
Wrapping, Frying, and Serving
Wrapping.
To wrap, take ½ tsp (or a ½ tsp and change) of your filling and place at the center of the wonton. Fold the corner over so it’s not quite overlapping, like this:
Press, then take the other corner and fold in the same way. A visual of the process is at 3:13 in the accompanying video.
Frying.
To deep fry, add enough oil to a wok (or your frying vessel of choice) that the wontons could comfortably submerge. You will likely need to work in batches. Get the oil up to 190C, then add in a batch of wontons and shut off the heat.
We will be aiming to fry these at 170C, for 3-4 minutes. Once golden to your liking, remove and toss on a paper towel lined plate.
Serving
Serve the pork wontons with Thai sweet chili sauce (泰式甜辣酱) or Chili Garlic Sauce (蒜蓉辣椒酱).
In the accompanying video, we played around with serving the Durian wontons with Thai sweet chili sauce (泰式甜辣酱) and Thai Salted Coconut Sauce — i.e. the sort that is served alongside Thai Mango Sticky rice.
In the end, we preferred Thai sweet chili sauce with this, but the latter was also fun. We adapted ours from this video:
In a pot, mix together
¼ tsp sugar
½ tbsp sugar
½ tbsp rice flour
80g coconut cream
80g water
and bring to a simmer over a medium flame. Swap the flame to medium low, and add
1 pandan leaf, optional
Simmer for ~5 minutes, or until thick to your liking.
You can also use Kan Sui (枧水), i.e. Asian lye water for this. This would be what would actually be used in Guangdong — use the same ⅛ tsp if going that route. If you cannot find either, sodium carbonate can be produced from baking soda by baking the soda for ~30 minutes at 150C.
We felt a touch of additional Durian flesh at this stage was able to amp up the Durian flavor in the final product. Durian has a good bit of moisture, of course, so the more you add the higher the risk of the wonton bursting when frying. In the accompanying video, we added 50g on a whim, which was likely a touch too aggressive. 20-30g has done us well, but if you would like to play it safe… don’t add any.