Of course you may! Last week I shared one of me and Mister's favorite warm-you-right-up foods: Red Oil Wontons. Today, as promised I'll show you how we make the wontons.
First off start off with a lot of green onions, or scallions. I like to use the entire stalk from whites to green for this. If you find that the white bits are too strong feel free to leave that out.
Next add in your ground pork. As you can see this is a very fatty mix. Unlike the dumplings we made the ratio for this filling is more meat. With more meat I didn't want it to be too dry so I used a fatty mix.
Then add in your salt. (Yes, that is a sugar pourer. I really like it as there is a pour function, and two different sprinkle sizes! We got this awhile ago from Walmart.)
Then in with the white pepper. Regular pepper is find here too, I just has this on hand and already ground.
With pork heavy dishes my mom has always added in shaoxing cooking wine. It's a type of rice wine. I would just omit it from the recipe if you don't have it on hand.
Mix it all together!
It's time to wrap now! Again this may all seem very similar to the dumpling tutorial (mix filling and wrap), but there are little differences. I mean you are still mixing the filling and wrapping, but you're mixing different things and you're wrapping differently. One of the biggest differences is that the size of the filling is much smaller. With wontons there is much more of the wrapper you are having. Here I use 1 teaspoon for each wrapper.
Plop down that filling right in the center.
Dab on a little water on two of the sides.
Then fold it into a triangle. Then dab on a little more water onto the two outer sides.
Now just take the two points and cross them right at the bottom of the filling pocket. Pinch tightly!
See how that creates a little stuffed spoon perfect for your saucy goodness?
This wrapping process is much faster than the dumpling one. Also the wrappers are much thinner than the dumpling wrapper. These are all ready to float and cook in some boiling water! or make extra and freeze them! I like to freeze them on a tray first then transfer the frozen wontons into a more space-saving bag/container. Let me know if you make these!
Of course you may. You may be asking, why and how we decided to make our own hand pulled noodles? Well it all started as we were scrolling through our feeds a this ridiculous man was just pulling noodles. Then Mister decided right then that we need to not only try it but master it. That was late last year and we have been pulling noodles about twice a month. Today I wanted to share one of our earlier trys, and to show you how it's not that difficult.
What you'll need: cake flour, baking soda, salt, sesame oil, and all purpose flour.
Making the dough is probably the easiest part. Basically all you have to do is measure out all the ingredients.
I just did it all by scale, so it was all in one bowl and no measuring cups/spoons!
And then let it whirl in a stand mixer!
I use a paddle first, then the dough will form into a ball a few minutes in. Then I switch to a dough hook for the rest of the mixing time. It'll be mixing for about 15 minutes. (The very, very first time we made this we mixed the dough all by hand and it took hours. Yes, hours! So would really recommend using an electric mixer. Thankfully we weren't discouraged from that first try and tried again with a electric mixer. It makes it so much easier.)
Then your dough is ready for pulling!
Can you spot my napa cabbage rubber bands?
Ideally you have a big clean surface to work on.
We are still working on technique here so bear with me. But expect to see another hand pulled noodle recipe and how-to soon! We just need to do a couple more weeks of testing.
We used the basic recipe found here.
Of course you may. This is a little different than the traditional wonton soup in that it's packed with way more flavor! It's not as oily or spicy as you would think (well that's what I thought the first time). Today I want to share how to prepare Red Oil Wontons. Come back next week for how I make the just the wontons!
What you'll need: Spicy Chili Crispy Oil (This brand is Lao Gan Ma), Soy Sauce, Chinkiang Vinegar (it''ll bring a sweetness to the dish and cut down that oiliness), sesame oil, and plain ol' sugar.
Mix together: 4 tablespoons of the chili oil, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, 3 tablespoons of vinegar, 1 tablespoon of sesame oil, and 1 tablespoon of sugar. Let it sit and marry while you prepare the wontons.
How cute are these little wontons!
I like to fold/pinch them in a little spoon shape to better scoop the sauce. See all those little nooks and pockets? Perfect for sauce!
All lined up and ready to be cooked.
Gently boil until they float and then cook on a simmer for another 3 minutes.
Almost there.. Now just strain the wontons out and spoon on the sauce.
Finally top it off with some green onions or scallions and you are ready to eat.
Can you just imagine how warm you will be? I end up wanting more sauce to really dunk the wontons in. I find Red Oil Wontons (also called Sichuan-style Wontons) more of a snack or a appetizer to a main meal. Enjoy and show me pictures if you try out the recipe!
Of course you may. Spam Musubi is a meaty snack that I used to get all the time. (There was Dollar Musubi deal every Tuesday.) These days there isn't an L&L close to me, so I have decided to make it at home. The concept it simple. Lay a slice of browned up Spam over fresh rice and wrap it in seaweed. Well I didn't have seaweed and I don't have this handy musubi mold. For today's Tutorial Tuesday post, I will be showing you how I made Spam Musubi (with a mold and seaweed).
First off I know there are so many other flavors out there, but this 25% less sodium one was the only one on sale at Costco and that's what I will be working with. (today and for like a few months.)
The aroma coming out of a freshly opened can of Spam is so strong! Oswald came over for a whiff but moved on to the blankets soon after this picture.
Back to the Musubi making. As I worked on the Spam, Mister worked on making a mold with the Spam can. He first used the piercer function of the multi-purpose scissors and pierced a hole.
Then he used a can opened and just opened the can on this side.
It doesn't cut open ever crevice but most of the "bottom" is almost released.
So Mister just grabbed some scissors and cut that open.
Ta-da! The mold is born. This is clearly not a very safe option to making the mold, but it's all we have.
Back to the food part. Slice up the Spam. I like about 8-10 slices with each can. If you like it with more meat then make less slices!
Then into an ungreased pan, brown and crisp up the Spam slices. On both slices.
Then after the Spam browns, sprinkle on a light layer of sugar.
Then just a splash of soy sauce. (Not too much as Spam is already very salty. Even the less sodium kind.)
And a splash of water. Just until it's covered. (No precise measurements here, as pan sizes and how thick you have sliced the Spam varies.)
Then back to the mold. The only little con is with our make shift mold is you can't really tell how much rice you have squished down. You want to pack the rice so the whole musubi will hold together when you hold it. (if you do decide to also cut open the bottom of the Spam then please be careful with the raw edge of the can.)
You wan to have the rice ready so when the spam is all ready, you can quickly place it on top of the rice so the rice can soak up all that flavor. After you placed the spam on top, the spam acts like a weight to hold down the rice. If you had the seaweed you would place that underneath the mold and rice, then after you pull off the mold you can just wrap up the musubi and eat!
So how did I wrap it? Since I have a ton of rice paper leftover, I used the rice paper to wrap the whole musubi package. It's a little weird to have rice on rice, but it worked out pretty well to hold every thing together. (We did get the seaweed when we picked up that seaweed snack I raved about earlier this week.)
Follow Me @Instagram
