Anyone who knows me, knows that I love deep fried food. French fries, donuts, tempura – you name it. If it’s been in a deep fryer, I want to eat it. I even had a car that ran on deep fryer oil for a brief time. You can ask Richard how that worked out for me.
So when I discovered wanton wraps in the refrigerated section of the grocery store, my mind turned quickly to golden brown deliciousness. But what to put in them? How about an Asian theme? That way I can pretend that the cruciferous nature of bok choy will counter-balance the deep frying.
Fried Bok Choy Wantons
Half a medium red onion (green onions would be great too)
2 cloves garlic
6 bunches of baby bok choy (chopped)
8oz mushrooms (chopped finely)
1 tablespoon minced ginger
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
Olive oil (or sesame oil)
Saute the onions, garlic, ginger and mushrooms in olive oil for about five minutes, then stir in the soy sauce and hoisin. Add the bok choy and cook until just wilted. Drain the liquid and set the mixture aside in a bowl. You can do this ahead of time if you like, which allows more time for cooling, making it easier to handle the filling, but you don’t have to. Just don’t let your 3 year old stick her hand in the bowl of filling until it cools. And under no circumstances should you let her near the deep fry area!
Get out your wanton wrappers and peel them apart. Place a few wraps in front of you, laid out on a clean surface. Spoon about a teaspoon of filling into the center of one wrap at a time and create a stuffed triangle by joining corner to corner, using water and your fingertips to seal the wanton closed on both sides.
Heat a pan full of cooking oil (we use Canola, about an inch thick) to a very high temperature and make sure you have a metal slotted spoon or spatula handy to retrieve the fried wantons once they turn brown – which is very quickly! Richard did all the frying work pictured here – perfection! The house fills with smoke, but if you turn down the oil, the wantons fall apart completely and it ruins everything. So open your windows and doors, but make sure you get the results you want!
Dipping Sauce
Soy Sauce
Hoisin sauce
fresh ginger, minced
chopped fresh cilantro
Yum!
Violet report: She very much enjoyed making the wantons, but did not eat even one bite. But, she ate all her broccoli. So maybe the deep fried food things isn’t hereditary? Or maybe bok choy is too weird.
I think we’ll need to test her out on some carnival mini-donuts some time soon.
Comments