Jake's Homemade Wonton Soup

Wonton soup with pork and shrimp

I had been feeling under the weather lately so I asked Jake if we could make wonton soup over the weekend.  He was a little hesitant since the dimsum place near his house has really good wonton soup, but I have been on a cooking roll and wanted to try making this for myself.  After buying all the ingredients at the market, it took about 45 minutes to prep.  The Olympics were on so we were half watching that and half cutting everything.  When everything was said and done, it tasted really good.  Presentation-wise, I would be a bit embarrassed to serve this to people other than my close friends and family since the wonton wrappers didn't hold up as well as I wanted.  Some of the filling actually exploded into the soup.  Haha.  I guess we didn't wrap them tight enough.  If I make this in the future, I will try to not cram as much filling as I did.

Ingredients

(yields 8-10 servings)

1/2 pound of ground pork

1/2 pound of shrimp (peeled)

small ginger (grated)

3 green onions (cut into 1/4 inch pieces)

1/2 cup of rice wine

3/4 cup of soy sauce

1/3 cup of sesame oil

2 cups of chicken broth

3 cups of water

4 tablespoons of Knorr wonton soup mix (available at Asian markets)

package of small square wonton wrappers (quantity: 60)

      *optional

       head of cabbage (roughly chopped)

       mushrooms (chopped to 1/3 inch thickness)

Directions

1) In a nonstick pan, cook the pork for about 5-10 minutes.

2) In a separate pan, add half a cup of water and cook the shrimp for 2 minutes on each side.. 

3) Combine the two in a medium mixing bowl.

4) Add the ginger, green onions, rice wine, soy sauce, and sesame oil.

5) Mix together and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

6) Fill the middle of each wonton wrapper with 1 tablespoon of mixture

 *For instructions, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ33n10ht88&feature=related (that's not me by the way, I just needed a quick tutorial)

7) Set the wontons aside and make sure you don't keep them too close together since the wrappers will stick and it will be hard to pry them off without breaking.

8) In a medium-sized pot, add the chicken broth, 2 1/2 cups of water, and the wonton soup mix.  Keep on high heat until the soup mix is fully dissolved. 

9) Add the cabbage, mushrooms, and prepared wontons.

10) Cook on high heat until the wontons look transparent.  This should take about 10-15 minutes.