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Fried Wonton authentic recipe

by | Nov 15, 2010

Fried Wonton authentic recipe

fried wonton recipe

Wontons are a very popular dish in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Even different provinces in China have different names and different cooking styles for this popular dish.

There are many different stories about Wontons. My favourite story is about how Xi Shi created this dish. Xi Shi is one of the four most beautiful women in Chinese history. She originally comes from Kingdom of Yue during period of time called Spring And Autumn.

During a war with King Fuchai of Wu, King Goujian of Yue was imprisoned after he was defeated. After his imprisonment, King Goujian of Yue secretly planned his revenge. He trained beautiful women and offered them to Fuchai as a gift and Xi Shi was one of those beautiful women.

Xi Shi created Wonton during her mission for which she was to seduce King Fuchai. One day, during a big party, King Fuchai became sick of all of the food at his party and became annoyed. Xi Shi ran to the kitchen in a panic to try and find food to please King Fuchai. King Fuchai took one bite of her Wonton and was surprised by the taste of it. He asked Xi Shi “what is this tasty dish?”

Xi Shi thought King Fuchai was a completely ignorant, chaotic, stupid pig. In Chinese language, there is a word which sounds very similar to wonton which translates to chaotic, so she decided to call this dish Wonton.

So, this is basically how Wonton was created. Even though the name for this dish isn’t that affectionate it doesn’t affect the taste. I deep-fried the wonton today instead of serving it in more traditional wonton soup as I really like the crunchiness of the batter. I have to say I really love wontons whether they are in soup or deep-fried but my personal preference is for deep-fried.

Credits: Preparation photos were taken by myself but final photos were taken by Chris at: http://www.chrisradleyphotography.com

fried wonton procedure
fried wonton procedure

 

fried wonton recipe
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Fried Wonton authentic recipe

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 30 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
Servings 25 wontons

Ingredients

  • 250 g prawn
  • 100 g pork shoulder meat cut into small dices
  • 3 spring onion chop roughly
  • 2 slices ginger chop roughly
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tsp rice wine
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper powder
  • 1/2 tsp sesame oil
  • 30 sheets wonton pastry

Instructions

  1. Process half of the prawn, pork, spring onion, ginger and all the seasonings in a food processor.
  2. Roughly chop the other half of the prawn and mix evenly with step 1 (this ensures the filling texture tastes better).
  3. Put 1 teaspoon of filling in the centre of the pastry and use your fingers to gently close the pastry tightly as shown in the procedure photos.
  4. Heat a wok with some oil at full gas power. Put the wontons into the wok and turn off the gas and let the wonton fry until the wonton turns a nice golden colour.

Recipe Notes

** Oil temperature is about 180 degree. Turn off the gas after placing the wonton inside so it cooks through. This will ensure the outside doesn’t burn but the inside isn’t raw.

 

Deep fried chicken legs with savoury sticky rice

by | Nov 3, 2010

Normally for female chefs it’s very hard to get promotion and near impossible in my home country but no matter how hard you work men always seem to get the promotions first. So after I left college I worked as a chef for a period of time but couldn’t go anywhere with it and gave it up for a few years. Then I moved to the UK in 2007 and found I could get a job as a chef fairly easily and have gone on from since then.

During my time in the UK I have worked in two really top quality restaurants and a number of lesser quality restaurants but as some may now getting promoted as a chef takes time. So, I joined the Witchery in March of this year and after six months I have a promotion. When I was told I have it I nearly danced across the kitchen and almost cried my eyes out but I was afraid he would think I’m a lunatic.

So, it’s now time for me to share a new recipe with you. I saw this “Deep fried chicken leg with savoury sticky rice” dish a long time ago but I’ve always wanted to try to make this dish and now it’s the time for it.

Even though the cooking method for this dish is deep fry it’s not entirely deep-fried. The chicken legs must steam first to make sure the whole shape has set but then you can deep fry it to make the skin turn crispy. I hope you can try it and give me some feedback.

 

Ingredients for savoury sticky rice:

2 cups sticky rice, soak with 3 cups of water for 1 hour
300g of pork belly. Remove the skin and cut it into rectangle shape as per the procedure photo.
4 dried shitake mushrooms, soak in warm water to soften it and thin slice it after.
2 tablespoons dried shrimp, soak in warm water to soften it and chop roughly after.
2 slices ginger, chop roughly
2 cloves garlic, chop roughly
1 spring onion, chop roughly

Seasonings for savoury sticky rice:

½ tablespoon rock sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cut soy sauce
1 ½ cup water
1 tablespoon rice wine

 

Procedures for savoury sticky rice:

  1. Cook the sticky rice in the steamer or rice cooker. The water and rice percentage should be 0.9: 1. So, if it’s 100g of sticky rice and you should pour 90g of water in the rice to cook with. I, personally use a rice cooker to cook my rice so I put my sticky rice and water in a big bowl and pour a cup of water outside of the bowl to cook. It will take around 45 minutes to cook the rice.
  2. Heat a wok with 2 tablespoons oil and stir-fry the garlic, ginger, spring onion. Add the rock sugar after the aroma starts to come out of the wok.
  3. Add pork to stir-fry it until the pork is cooked on the outside.
  4. Then add shitake mushroom and dried shrimp, mix evenly.
  5. Add all the seasoning and water. Boil it first then simmer it to reduce down the sauce.
  6. Mix everything together with cooked sticky rice and pour ¼ teaspoon of sesame oil. This is the savoury sticky rice done.

Ingredients for Deep fry chicken legs with savoury sticky rice:

2 chicken legs, including thighs. De-bone them but we keep the skin.
Some sticky rice

 

Seasonings for Deep fry chicken legs with savoury sticky rice:

1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper powder
½ teaspoon rice wine
Some corn flour

 

Procedures:

  1. Marinade the chicken legs with salt, black pepper powder and rice.
  2. Wrap some sticky rice within the chicken legs and wrap up with cling film. Steam for around 15 minutes.
  3. After the chicken legs have cooked. Cool it down before you remove the cling film and coat them with corn flour and deep-fry it in 180-degree oil until the ouside is a nice golden colour.
  4. Cut it into 1.5 cm ~ 2 cm slice to serve with some sweet chilli sauce or ketchup.

* Chicken legs must cool down first before removing the cling film or they will easily break up and cause a problem when deep-frying them.

Credits: Preparation photos were taken by myself but final photos were taken by Chris at: http://www.chrisradleyphotography.com

Smoked Duck Noodle Soup

by | Sep 8, 2010

Smoked Duck Noodle Soup

smoked duck noodle soup

In Taiwan, Taiwanese people will use smoked duck’s bone to make a special stock for noodle soup and duck meat for this smoked duck noodle soup. I always remember when I went to restaurants to have Peking duck (Beijing roast duck) with my family and my mother always asked for the bone to take home after dinner. She will use this duck bone to make stock and make rice soup in the morning for us as breakfast. The fragrance and the taste of that rice soup is so amazing. You can feel every inch of your body is awake after the first sip of the rice soup. Ah, such a wonderful memory. Now my mother is not in the UK so I have had to learn to cook this for my husband and I. I decided to cook this smoked duck noodle for us in our day off for our brunch but ever since I cooked it Chris has been pining for more.

I believe a good noodle soup or rice soup can enrich and bless your body even your mind. So here is my recipe for a delicious smoked duck noodle soup

Credits: Preparation photos were taken by myself but final photos were taken by Chris at: https://chrisradleyphotography.com

 

smoked duck noodle soup
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Smoked Duck Noodle Soup

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 2 hours
Total Time 2 hours
Servings 2 people

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 4 duck legs
  • 2 portions noodles

Seasonings

  • 3 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 ltr water
  • 2 spring onions
  • 3 slices ginger
  • 5 cm cinnamon stick
  • 1 star anise
  • 1 piece dried tangerine peel
  • 1 tbsp brown sugar

Marinade for duck legs

  • 1 tbsp Sichuan pepper
  • 1 tbsp salt
  • 2 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine

Ingredients for smoking duck legs

  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 tbsp flour
  • 2 bags teabags or tea leaf
  • 2 star anise

Instructions

  1. Marinade duck legs with the marinade seasonings for 1 hour.
  2. Heat up 2 tablespoon of oil in a sauce pan. Stir-fry the spring onion, ginger, all the spices.
  3. Pour the water, soy sauce, brown sugar into procedure 2 and boil it.
  4. Put duck legs into procedure 3 after it boiled and bring it to boil again. After boil turn the gas power to the lowest gas power and simmer for 45 minutes. Keep the sauce for stock later.
  5. Line the inside of a large roasting pan with foil and spread with ingredients for smoke the duck. Place a rack (cooling racks work well) inside the roasting pan. Place the duck legs on top of the rack (skin side down) and cover with tin foil to trap the smoke. Put the roasting pan on centre of the burner and heat up the roasting pan with moderate heat and after 2~3 minutes you will notice smoke coming out. Cook for a further 10 minutes. Brush some sesame oil on top of the duck legs after smoking.
  6. De-bone 2 duck legs and use the bones along with the sauce from Step 4 to make the stock. Put everything in to a small sized stock pot and simmer for 1 hour.
  7. Cook the noodle and place it in a bowl, pour some stock from procedure 6 and place the duck legs and duck meat on top with some spring onion and coriander as garnish.

 

Steamed Egg with Seafood Sauce

by | Aug 16, 2010

Steamed Egg with Seafood Sauce

steamed egg with seafood sauce

In Edinburgh I believe August must be every Edinburgh Chef’s worst nightmare. Edinburgh is an extremely busy city throughout the year but August brings the Fringe and Military tattoo festivals, which bring millions of tourists here every year. At the top of the Royal Mile, where both of the festivals take place is the entrance to the Witchery, the restaurant I work for. So, we are fully booked every night and there are always a million jobs that need to be done. (If you want to come to the Witchery, please make a reservation before you come to have meal, I beg you.)

After 3 days of really hard work in the kitchen, I just don’t have the motivation to cook a big meal so I I’ve recently been eating smaller and perhaps simpler dishes. I suddenly think about a dish that my mother usually cooked for my father and I after she came home from work. This dish is called Steamed eggs with Seafood . This seafood dish is really quick to cook and also really beautiful to look at. The most important thing is you can cook this dish within 30 minutes. Oh my!! It’s a great blessing for working mother and wife.

By the way, Do you still remember my last blog about our ceramic work?? Here is the final result photo of our ceramic works. We had great fun there and hope to go back to Doodle again soon. Personally made ceramic crafts could be a great souvenir to bring home if you visit Edinburgh.

Credits: Preparation photos were taken by myself but final photos were taken by Chris at Chris Radley Photography

picture frames

 

steamed egg with seafood sauce
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Steamed Egg with Seafood Sauce

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 35 minutes
Servings 2 people

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 4 eggs
  • 6 prawns
  • 5 cooked mussels you can use any seafood you like including scallops or squids
  • 2 dried shiitake mushroms
  • 1/2 spring onion chop finely for garnish

Marinade for prawns

  • 1 pinch salt
  • 1 pinch white pepper
  • 1/2 tsp potato starch
  • 1/4 tsp rice wine

Seasonings

  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp bonito powder (optional)
  • 1.5 cups water
  • 1/2 tsp oyster sauce
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/4 tsp potato starch
  • 1/4 tsp sesame oil
  • 1/2 tsp soy sauce

Instructions

  1. Soak dried shitake mushroom in the warm water for 5~10 minutes until it has softened and slice it.
  2. Wash prawns and dry. Mix with marinade for 5~10 minutes.
  3. Heat the 1 ½ cup water, salt, bonito powder in a pot until it’s hot but not boiling. Pour it into the beaten eggs and stir constantly when you’re pouring the seasoning into the eggs. Sieve the egg mixture into a bowl or deep plate and put half of seafood into the egg mixture. Cover the bowl with cling film and steam it for around 15 minutes to be done.
  4. Heat 1 teaspoon oil and stir fry the shitake mushroom, rest of the seafood and add oyster sauce, 1/2 cup water mixed with ¼ teaspoon potato starch, sesame oil, soy sauce. Bring it to boil and pour over steamed egg.

 

Deep Fried Prawn Rolls

by | Aug 10, 2010

Deep Fried Prawn Rolls

I went to a ceramic workshop call Doodles last week with Chris and where we both painted two items each. Doodles is a ceramics workshop where you can walk in, choose a pot, whether it’s a plate, bowl or whatever, and you paint it whatever colour(s) you want. I choose a cereal bowl and a small square plate and he choose a photo frame and a rectangle plate.

doodles marchmont

We both had a lot of fun and spent three hours in the workshop. Tomorrow is the day that we can bring our ceramic works back. We both can’t wait to see how’s our work turns out.

doodles marchmont
doodles marchmont

My job has been super tiring since the Fringe and Tattoo festivals started. We’re serving a much larger number of covers and everyone has been really stressed out. So, I decided to make this simple, quick but cheerful snack for one of our dinner dish tonight.

deep fried prawn rolls

This deep fried prawn/shrimp rolls dish is one of the famous street foods in Danshui. Danshui is a very popular tourism spot for Taiwanese people and foreigners so it’s always full of people. Danshui was the place that the Spanish arrived in Taiwan and they also built a castle called Santo Domingo in Danshui. The Spanish were however expelled from Taiwan by the Dutch in 1641 and the Dutch built a new fort on the same site as San Domingo, which is known today as Hongmao Cheng.

But the funny thing is when I told my Dutch and Spanish colleague about this part of history and they don’t know anything about it. And I’m the one who gave them a history lesson for them.  So here is this tasty and super easy Taiwanese deep fried prawn roll recipe for you.

Credit: Most of these photos were taken by Chris at: Chris Radley Photography

 

deep fried prawn rolls
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Deep Fried Prawn Rolls

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 30 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
Servings 24 prawn rolls

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 100 g pork loin including the fat, cut into dices
  • 12 raw prawns
  • 12 cooked prawns cut into small dice (I added the cooked prawns for a different texture)
  • 1 egg white
  • 2 thin slices ginger chop finely
  • 1 spring onion chop finely
  • 1 tbsp potato starch
  • 24 sheets spring roll pastry

Seasonings

  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper powder
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil
  • 1/2 tsp sugar

Instructions

  1. 1. Use a food processor to process raw prawn and pork loin until the texture turns quite finely without any big chunks.
  2. 2. Add all the ingredients and seasonings but not the cooked prawn into step 1 and use a spatula to mix it evenly.
  3. 3. Put half a tablespoon of prawn filling on the spring roll pastry and follow the procedure photos to roll it.
    how to make deep fried prawn rolls
  4. 4. Roll the pastry towards the opposite direction
    how to make deep fried prawn rolls
  5. 5. Use a little bit of egg wash to close the edge tightly
    how to make deep fried prawn rolls
  6. 6. Heat up some oil to deep fry the prawn. Oil temperature should be 160C. It’s ready to serve when the prawn roll turns into a pretty golden colour.