As much as I love fried food, making it at home can be quite a challenge. How so? First it's the smell and aftermath cleaning, then there's tremendous amount of oil involved.
So to remedy the hard work after frying anything at home, I've decided to use half the amount of oil this time with deeper pot instead. But it only works for frying food that are thinner or flatter shaped. If I'm going to fry big meatballs or thicker cut of chicken, using less oil might not give you the best texture in the end.
Less oil fried cream cheese wontons -
Ingredients (about 10 big or 20 medium small ones)?
- 10 big or 20 medium small wonton wrappers
- 200g cream cheese
- 1 string scallion
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
- Some preferred frying oil
- Some powdered sugar (optional)
How?
Destem and chop the scallion. We only need one string here, not the entire stalk. The scallion is used for final decoration and a tiny bit aroma pop. Line a big plate with paper towel.
Have a medium bowl ready and mix in softened cream cheese. Also add in white section of the chopped scallion, 1 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, 1 teaspoon of granulated sugar, 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder, and 1/4 teaspoon of onion powder. Mix till evenly blended.
Have a wonton wrapping station ready. I like to have a small bowl of drinkable water, some paper towel standing by, and a plate for wontons.
Scoop the cream cheese filling to the center of wonton wrapper. About 1 tablespoon for big wonton wrapper, use smaller amount for small wrapper. Wet the edge of all four sides with drinkable water then fold and seal to triangular shaped wonton.
Repeat till all the cream cheese filling is gone. It's better to have leftover wonton wrappers than cream cheese filling. If only a few wrappers left, perhaps cut them into strips and fry in oil in the end. You'll have something crunchy for salad later on. Or just dust with powdered sugar and enjoy as a simple snack.
Once all the wontons are ready, pour in some oil to the pot and switch to medium to medium high heat. Only need to pour enough oil till about half inch high.
Wait till the temperature rises. You can test it out by dipping the edge of the wonton and see if it starts to sizzle. If so, the oil is ready and go ahead to transfer the wontons over.
Don't overcrowd the pot, make sure all the wontons have enough room without overlapping one another. Fry in batches if needed.
Once the bottom appears golden brown, flip to the other side and fry till golden brown again. Remove to the plate lined with paper towel. The paper towel will help absorbing excess oil.
When ready to serve, transfer the wontons to the serving plate and dust some powered sugar on top. Garnish with chopped scallion greens.
Some prefer to serve the cream cheese wontons with sweet chili sauce. That works too, but I personally like the powered sugar for a gentle sweetness boost. It's like a slightly sweet yet savory snack in the end.
If somehow you can't finish all the fried wontons and you had to store them in the fridge, I would suggest simply eat the leftover without reheating the wontons. The wrappers actually stay crunchy even after storing in the fridge, no need to risk loosing that bite trying to bring up the temperature again.
A very important end note, even though we already use less oil and deeper pot to fry the wontons, the occasional hot oil splashing might still occur. One way to prevent that is to really make sure no water drips into the hot oil.
Also when frying the wontons, some might start to puff up in the center. When that happens, don't move the wonton or don't even attempt to flip it because any extra movement might cause the wonton to break. And when wonton breaks, the fillings will be in direct contact with hot oil, that's when the serious oil splashing happens.
I had like a couple of wontons broke during the process, and all I can say is that I'm glad I use deeper pot to do the job. The tall side at least blocked half of the hot oil from landing on me.
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