Chinese people had been making huntun miantang 餛飩麵湯 [huntun noodles soup] for over 2 000 years and this dish had been recorded in Chinese historical records.
Perhaps you know this dumpling by its Cantonese name wonton 雲吞.
Chinese people buy huntun skins [wrappers] from Chinese supermarkets. There are two types of huntun skins - Cantonese and Shanghainese. I use Cantonese huntun skin and it is labelled as 雲吞皮 on the package. There are 64 wrappers in this pack of 400 grams of huntun skins.
I imagine it is possible to make huntun skins if one were to have a pasta machine as the skin has to be very thin. The Shanghai wrapper has no eggs and the Cantonese wrapper has added eggs.
Therefore one has to make the filling for the huntun. Here is my recipe for the filling. You will need 600 grams of huntun skins to use up all of this filling below.
500 grams of free range lean pork - minced
200 grams of prawns with its shells - uncooked prawns - about 180 grams of prawns without shells
4 stalks of spring onions - finely sliced
1 inch ginger - finely minced
seasoning
1 tsp Himalayan salt
1 tsp sugar - huntun has to have a little sweet taste
2 tbsp soya sauce - I use Golden Orchid soya sauce
2 tbsp Chinese rice wine 紹興酒 Shaoxing rice wine
2 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp shallot flavoured oil
To get rid of the fishy smell from the prawns, soak the prawns in rice wine and salt as soon as you get home from the shopping and put the soaked prawns in the fridge until you need them. Remove the shells from the prawns but do not throw the shells away. You can add the shells into the chicken stock to improve the taste the soup. In addition, you can add dried anchovies and dried prawns into the soup as well.
Mix in the finely chopped spring onion [the green part only], finely minced ginger, with the pork. Add the above seasoning into the minced pork with the minced prawns.
Allow the mixture to stand in the fridge for at least half an hour.
How to wrap the huntun
Place one of the wrappers diagonally with one end facing you
place a teaspoon of filling on the middle of that wrapper.
Moisten the edges of the wrapper with water - you could dip your index finger on a bowl of water to moisten the edges of the wrapper.
Fold the wrapper over to a triangular shape - slightly off centre, and seal the edges.
Gently bring the wings [ends of the wrapper] together, moisten one wing and place the other wing on top of this and ensure the wings are stucked together.
Bring to boil 3 litres of water and the water boils, add the wrapped huntun into the boiling water. When the huntun floats to top, fish the huntuns out and drop these into cold water, if you are not going to serve these immediately.
Huntun Mian 餛飩麵
Huntun Mian 餛飩麵
Mian you should know this Chinese word. Everybody knows chaomian 炒麵, which is stir fried noodles. So huntun mian are the noodles which are eaten with huntun. You can buy huntun mian in two forms - one fine and the other broad. For this lunch, I am using the broad version because the fine version did not look very good in the shops yesterday when I went to get the ingredients for this lunch.
There are five portions of noodles in this 400 grams pack. However, for small eaters, you could share each portion of noodles wtih two people.
There are five portions of noodles in this 400 grams pack. However, for small eaters, you could share each portion of noodles wtih two people.
When the guests have arrived, bring to boil 3 litres of water and when the water is boiling, add some of the huntun noodles into hot water and boil for a couple of minutes. Then add the drained cooked huntun. When the huntun is hot, noodles are cooked, drain these and add these onto a bowl. Add 200 ml of hot boiling soup onto the huntun and noodles. Top with some vegetables, if you wish.
The recipe of how to make stock for the soup has already been explained in the post on chicken pulao.
We finished the meal with a Victoria sandwich to celebrate the English independence with green tea.
An alternative way to serve huntun mian - the Cantonese lo mien 撈麵: - After cooking the noodles, toss the cooked noodles with some oyster sauce and soya sauce - do not add too much oyster sauce, as it is very salty. The put the noodles on a plate with some cooked vegetables and with the cooked huntun - I serve 8 huntun parcels per person. Finally, sprinkle the whole dish with a little sesame oil. Serve with the hot soup on the side. I serve 200 ml of soup per person.
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