Vegetarian Wonton Soup

A creative recipe worth cooking that may also make you smile.

It was a cold winter’s day in what had been a mild winter where I have still felt fairly cold — don’t worry — it makes sense. I had just given myself a few choices for what to make for dinner as I always believe in giving myself the illusion of choice. I wanted to cook something that would warm my body with the potential of also warming my soul. Plus, I wanted to please my wife as that also has soul-warming potential.

After much deliberation and popcorn eating as well as contemplating a handstand, I excitedly selected vegetarian wonton soup. I had never made wontons before, but I am a brave and courageous home cook. Imagine a proud and strong general in an army and then entirely scrap that image and then try to imagine the human equivalent of a scarecrow who is a home cook and it would be like you’ve known me for years.

Every culture seems to have their own stuffed savory pastry mostly not to feel left out when the cultures get together at holiday time. Stuffed savory pastry dishes are all delicious to eat, but can be — at least for this stuffed-savory-pastry cook — not without their challenges. In the past I have attempted to create South Asian samosas, South American empanadas, Jewish knishes, Italian calzones, Ukrainian perogies, Greek spanakopitas, Vietnamese spring rolls and Australian (British) pasties with varying degrees of success.

Although the ingredients and pastries have all been different, the feeling of deja vu is omnipresent as is my level of frustration at my inability to pull them off to the standard I hold myself too. “Possibly my standards are too high?” I can almost hear you saying as I have my ear pressed firmly to the door. Possibly, but then what is life without always failing to reach impossibly high standards? That question is not rhetorical, I really want to know.

I am “blessed” with a short memory when it comes to attempting to prepare and cook this type of food as they all invariably take much longer and are infinitely more arduous to prepare than the recipe which usually says “this is so easy”. “This is so easy” is actually code for the opposite. When I read that, I should run towards the hills with reckless abandon. Hard to do with a tender hamstring though.

I guess I just have an issue with stuffing combinations of vegetables, spices and occasionally cheeses into pastries which may be worth looking into at some point as well as my short-term memory issue when it comes to my enthusiasm at trying to pull off a food item that I have repeatedly failed at in the past. I’m sure, on some level, this is cute.

Before I start, I have to say that there is nothing wrong at all with the wonderful recipe I found for vegetarian wonton soup in Mollie Katzen’s new cookbook The Heart of the Plate. I have consistently found all of her recipes to be accurate, tasty and easy to prepare (aside from this one and others like it, but I think that is just furry, old lovable me) and I fully recommend it to both vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike.

Pre-Cooking Mistakes

1) My first mistake or miscalculation was that I was already very pressed for time as I had to quickly whip these together before picking the kids up and taking them to their swimming lessons.

Why do I always do this to myself?!?!? I always scan the recipe and think “no problem!” because I am confident to a fault and my personal philosophy is that everything always works out. So, I honestly believe that I can somehow make a dish that should take an hour to prepare into a 45 minute window. Why do I believe that? I blame science.

This sort of food is best made on one of those late afternoon/early evenings when time is not an issue and one can relax, enjoy some jazz music, sip some wine and leisurely create a sumptuous dinner for the family. In my reality, with two young kids and a crazy busy schedule, late afternoons like that do not exist. Where did they go? Maybe a guy similar to me somewhere in China is the welcome recipient of all of those lazy afternoons. You are welcome Zhu-Long!

My mistake is trying to take a square peg (time-consuming recipe with lots of steps that beg to be carried out slowly) and fit it into a round hole (lack of time, rushed dinner preparation). And I am good at putting the peg into the correct whole most of the time!

2) My second error was not having all of my prep done before I started, because, as I already mentioned, I was seriously short on time. And I should know better. I love having a carefully laid out and intricately-prepared mise en place, but this time? Who knows?

3) My third problem was that I had never handled or worked with wonton skins before and it would probably have been good to practice a little bit. Almost like batting practice. Maybe me and some ‘skins’ should have gone to the playground, rode the bus to the library, spent some quality time together before launching into this process of me trying to stuff 50 of them. Or maybe scale back the recipe as my wife is always saying. I am very resistant to scaling things back. It just seems wrong and also too smart a thing to do.

The Recipe

So, before making the wontons, Mollie suggests either warming up some store-bought broth or making her recommended Ginger-Fennel Broth, which I did. I try to never buy broth. I also try to avoid even looking at the broth on the shelves when I shop.

The Broth

• 2 fennel stalks and fronds
• 1 medium tart apple, cored
• 1 pound of onions, peeled
• 5 -6 green onions
• 6 medium shiitake mushrooms
• 6 thick slices of ginger
• 4 large garlic cloves
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 10 cups of water
• a few drops of soy sauce

1) Chop two stalks off of a fennel bulb. This is the part that usually goes unused and heads straight for the compost. They were quite happy to serve a purpose this time. I gave them their moment, before chopping them up as mercilessly as I could.

2) Chop up the apple and the onions. Don’t allow them to touch each other unless you’ve already had “that” talk.

3) Slice the ginger, peel and slice the garlic and slice the green onions in half. Stand back and admire your work. Don’t write home about it.

4) De-stem the shiitakes and slice them. You could use domestic or button mushrooms. You could do lots of things. Some people may encourage you to do those things. I do not. Use the shiitakes!

5) Combine all of the chopped and sliced ingredients in a large stock pot, add the salt and water and bring to a boil. Take a moment to fix your hair, just not too long as you don’t want to be obsessive about it, even when alone.

6) Once it boils, let out a loud “whoop” and then lower to simmer, partially cover and cook for 1 hour. I’m pretty sure you could simmer for longer with the only results being less stock and no food in bellies (is that where it goes?).

7) Strain the stock and discard the solids before returning the liquids to the pot. Put pot on low heat and add a few drops of soy sauce. Watch them dance on the stock. Cover until the wontons are steamed. You now have time for a moment of self-reflection….Hope that was good for you.

The Wontons

• 1 tablespoon peanut oil
• 1 small onion
• 1 pound of mushrooms
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon dry white wine
• 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
• 3 dozen wonton wrappers

1) Take a small onion and then find an even smaller one. Observe the reactions of the larger onion and take a few notes. Now mince the smaller onion. I’m sure the original onion feels better now.

You will need 1/2 a cup of minced onions. But who am I to hold you back? Use more if you are a huge fan of onions. If you are use 9 cups — knock yourself out (note, chopping 9 cups of onions in a poorly-ventilated kitchen may, in fact, knock you out).

2) Mince some regular old domestic mushrooms unless you are rolling in money and then pay someone else to mince them for you while you lean against the wall with an annoying grin. I guess you could use more fancy mushrooms here if you are so inclined. I always wondered how it felt to walk in the shoes of someone who was always inclined. Constantly going up hills I guess.

3) Prepare a medium skillet for the job it was made to do — fry things. Turn the stove to medium heat for a minute, add the oil, wait another minute, swirl it around, wait a minute and then swirl it again. Still following? Feel free to come up with your own swirl and wait routine; mine is under patent.

4) Add the onion and cook for a minute and then add mushrooms, salt, wine and garlic. Cook on medium high heat, stirring for 10 minutes until almost all the juices evaporate. Your kitchen should now smell of onions, garlic, wine and mushrooms. What did you expect?

5) Remove the mushroom mixture with a care somewhere between open-heart surgery and intentionally smashing sandcastles with a slotted spoon and press out any remaining liquid. The mixture needs to be super dry. I can’t emphasize that enough. Some would say I’m not trying hard enough. Others want me to just be quiet already.

6) Set up a steamer or double boiler with a steam basket. Lightly spray the steam basket and place the basket over boiling water. Oh yeah, boil some water.

7) Now here is the tough part — for me. Have wrappers ready and a small bowl of water and a fork. Have a damp cloth ready to wrap the yet-to-be-used wonton wrappers with while you are working with the one you are working with. This was my big mistake and it is the one thing I did not do that I really should have and it is confusing why I didn’t because I always do this when I work with filo which I do at least once a month. Place one wrapper on a work surface (I chose a lightly floured cutting board — be creative!), place a teaspoon of mushroom mix into centre of the wrapper, apply a little water to the edge of the wrapper with either your finger, a pastry brush or someone else’s finger and fold over, crimping tightly with a fork. You don’t want to crimp so tightly as to pierce the wonton or bend the fork — just tightly enough that it is sealed and that none of the good stuff oozes out when it is being steamed. Save your hard crimping for the dance floor.

8) Repeat and repeat and repeat leaving yourself enough time to do this in a casual and relaxed manner. Learn from my mistake! I kept looking over my shoulder at the readily advancing time like I was on a timed cooking show. Maybe that’s it! Maybe I subconsciously am trying to recreate the feeling of my favourite cooking shows for myself as a present or a curse! Keep making ’em until all of the filling or all of the wrappers are exhausted. You getting exhausted is not an option private!

9) Cook the wontons one layer at a time for 3 minutes over simmering water. Now I would have done this right away and then eat the soup, but I had to take the kids swimming so I formed the wontons, lightly floured and then refrigerated, which, according to Mollie was okay. I misread her words and she actually suggested steaming and then refrigerating and not flouring at all. What was I reading?

It is funny to look at my tray of wontons. It is the story of the de-evolution of wontons. The early ones are perfectly stuffed and formed and sit there on the tray looking proud and strong. And then as time goes on they start to look misshapen, oddly stuffed, slightly fraying at the edges, and bursting at the seams until we reach the final few which bare almost no resemblance at all to their cousins at the beginning. True they will all taste the same in the end, but their short, disfigured lives will be tough. At least I won’t let them see their reflection in the mirror.

10) When you are ready, and not a moment sooner, add the cooked wontons to a bowl and ladle stock over top. You can chose to also do this for the others gathered in your kitchen or sitting patiently at the table or not. Try it both ways and see what happens. Don’t give them sharp cutlery in case you have a wonton-related riot on your hands.

11) Breath in the steam and enjoy the ginger and fennel aroma. It is majestic. I would say it is full-bodied, but have nothing to compare it to at the moment aside from myself and I believe I have the fuller body by a landslide. Now sip the broth and close your eyes and find yourself taken to a small restaurant in China that probably makes wontons far better than you can. No offense! Try a wonton. Enjoy the silky smooth exterior and the umami interior. It will be fleeting.

In the end, though it took so long to prepare and almost made us late for lessons and the wontons were misshapen and unraveling in the soup, it was really tasty.

Would I make it again? Hmmm….I’d say probably not, but knowing my short-term memory issues regarding stuffed savory pastries, all bets are off.

Enjoy!

(Note: I forgot to take a picture of my soup, so the photo at the top is not exactly how mine looked. Mine was more slightly more three-dimensional.)