Long Chaoshou (Chengdu wontons)

Grandma Li

This is a simplified home version, not the traditional restaurant method.

This is a Sichuan-style wonton in clear chicken broth, made the way I do at home with store-bought thin wonton wrappers and a clear chicken broth. It is not the shop's own recipe. The filling amounts roughly follow the second recipe, the salt and timings are my own choices at home, and the pork filling must be cooked all the way through.

Ingredients

• Minced pork, a mix of fat and lean 250 g
• Ginger 3 slices
• Scallions, for the steeping water 2 stalks, lightly smashed
• Warm water for steeping 100 ml
• Egg white from 1 egg
• Light soy sauce 2 teaspoons
• Salt about 1/2 teaspoon, my own choice
• White pepper 1/4 teaspoon
• Shaoxing wine 1 tablespoon
• Sesame oil 1 teaspoon
• Thin wonton wrappers about 40
• Clear chicken broth (homemade or store-bought) about 1 liter (4 cups)
• Chopped scallion a little

Steps

1. Put the ginger and scallion in a bowl, pour in the warm water and let it steep for about 10 minutes. Lift out the ginger and scallion and keep the water.
2. Put the minced pork in a large bowl, add the salt, soy sauce, wine, white pepper and egg white, and stir in one direction until sticky.
3. Add the ginger-scallion water in three additions, stirring in the same direction each time until the pork has taken it up before adding the next. The filling turns loose and moist. Stir in the sesame oil, cover and chill for about 30 minutes.
4. Lay a wrapper in your palm, put about 1 teaspoon of filling in the middle, fold it corner to corner into a triangle, then pinch the two bottom corners together, pressing out the air around the filling.
5. Bring a separate pot of water to a boil, drop in the wontons, and when it returns to a boil turn to medium heat and cook for about 4 minutes. I lift one out and cut it open: the pork must be cooked through, with no pink left.
6. Heat the chicken broth in another pot, lift the wontons into bowls, ladle the hot broth over them, scatter on the scallion and eat hot.

Tips

• I add the ginger-scallion water a little at a time and always stir the same way, which is how I get a loose, juicy filling.
• I cook the wontons in separate water and then put them into the hot broth, so the broth stays clear and is not clouded by flour from the wrappers.

Allergens: wheat, egg, soy, sesame