01.10.08
Skinning the Wonton
We made a run by LifeSource the other night for some essentials, and I decided, upon seeing the huge organic Napa cabbages, to make pork potstickers for dinner again. We made our way around to the refrigerated cases last, and lo and behold, no wonton wrappers in sight. Turns out they hadn’t been selling, and are no longer kept in stock—good to know, but not much help to a woman with the makings for potstickers already in her shopping cart. When I got home, I sat down and decided to try making the wrappers myself. You can use wonton wrappers as substitutes for fresh pasta in ravioli recipes, so how different could it be from making pasta dough?
Not much! I started with this recipe as my base, but halved it, using an egg white instead of a halved whole egg. My primary concern was producing a dough that wasn’t too sticky, and I ended up having to add quite a bit of flour to get something that didn’t leave residue on my fingers when I gave it a pinch. Next time I will add less water more gradually. The dough ran through my pasta maker up to the finest setting without a hitch, and I made sure to sprinkle the sheets very liberally with bench flour to keep them from sticking to the counter-top and each other. I overlapped them and covered them with a damp towel while making the potsticker filling, and they stayed nice and pliable until I was ready to fold my stickers. I just uncovered a few at a time, as I was ready for them.
The dough behaved very well, and definitely felt similar to the commercially-produced wonton wrappers I’ve used in the past. It was a tad softer, but that just facilitated folding and pinching into shape (a good thing since I don’t have a clue what I’m doing in that department!). I made about a dozen at a time, because that is all that would fit in my little nonstick pan. They responded to steaming and panfrying just as they should, with a good chew on top and a crisp brown crust underneath. The amount of dough I made produced almost exactly the right amount of wrappers to use up all the filling, amounting to about 3 dozen potstickers. They were so tasty that Jeremy commented, while tucking away his second helping, that now we won’t have to worry about finding wonton wrappers at the store anymore. I guess that’s true, but it wouldn’t hurt to look—potstickers are fiddly enough as it is, thanks!
This is my somewhat unorthodox entry for Presto Pasta Night #45, hosted by the lovely Ruth.
Wonton Wrappers
1 large egg white
About 1/3 C water
1 C all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
In the bowl of a standing mixer, combine the flour and salt. Add the egg white and mix with the paddle attachment over medium speed, slowly adding water until the dough forms a ball. You may not need all the water. Continue beating the dough with the paddle for several minutes, or remove from the mixer to knead by hand. You want a smooth elastic dough that isn’t sticky, so adjust the flour and/or water content by increments as necessary. Mine was rather more pliable than my usual egg pasta dough. Note: This was not a large amount of dough, so I didn’t bother with my dough hook.
Cut the dough into four equal parts and run through a pasta maker up to the thinnest setting, or roll out by hand using a liberal amount of bench flour. Cut the sheets into roughly 3″ squares, and make sure they are well sprinkled with flour on both sides before stacking or overlapping to prevent them from melding together again. Use immediately or cover for a short while with a damp towel to keep them from drying out. Makes about 3 dozen squares, enough for me to use up nearly all of the spectacularly delicious filling from Shawnda’s recipe, here. Or use in any recipe that calls for wonton wrappers.
Source: Adapted from AllRecipes.
that worked perfectly for a much smaller batch of ’stickers (really need a