Dry Wonton Mee

I can't remember when I first ate this dish. It's probably during my third year in Singapore (we were so poor my friends and I rarely ever ate out during our first two years there). I think I ate it at my school's canteen. NJC's canteen had a few of my favorite dishes and I always got them whenever I managed to get down quickly enough before a long line formed. The left most store served fried hokkien mee on Tuesdays and Thursdays (I think), and the right most store had briyani (whose name I asked my roommate multiple times before I got it) on Fridays. Of course there's always yong tau foo with its forever long line and the noodles store where I could get wonton mee, or sometimes mee pok. 

The concept of dry wonton noodles had been foreign to me. There are places in my hometown that serve wonton noodles too but they were always the soupy type, perhaps because the weather was always cool enough for a bowl of piping hot noodles. Well, I don't know since when this has been one of my favorite dishes to eat. Now, I make it sometimes, trying to duplicate the taste but sometimes I'm more successful than others. And knowing me, when I felt that it's close enough, I was too lazy to put down the list of ingredients that I put in and so I later forgot about it. Those were pre-this-blog days of course. Now, I try to pay attention to what I use, and how much so that I could share with you all. (I'm amazed by my generosity sometimes.)

So here it is:

INGREDIENTS:

2 servings 

2 bundles of wonton noodles (I particularly like one brand that's only sold at a Viet grocery store here) 

12 round wonton wrappers*

6 large shrimps (or about 1/2 per wonton)

3 oz ground pork

2 Tsp chopped chives

1 large clove of garlic, finely chopped

1 Tsp finely diced fresh water chestnuts (or jicama)

1.5 Tsp soy paste**

1 tsp corn starch

Baby bok choy

2.5 cups homemade (or low-sodium) chicken broth

Spring onion, for garnish

2 Tsp vegetable oil

2 tsp ketchup

Hot sauce (to taste)

3 tsp soy sauce

1 tsp oyster sauce

1 tsp soy paste

*These are sold in hundreds (I think) so I normally freeze them and put them out to thaw about 1.5h before I wrap them. You might want to freeze them in small portions if you don't have a family of 10.

**You might wonder if soy sauce is a good substitute. Well, I think soy paste works better because it's less liquidy, and also tastes different.

METHOD:

Clean the shrimps, chop into small pieces, mix with the corn starch and some soy paste. Set aside. At this point, you probably wonder why corn starch is used here. Well, this is how my friend's mom has always made her wontons. Later on, I read somewhere that the corn starch creates a high pH environment which gives the shrimps the "springy" feel just like when you order them at restaurants. Neat huh?

Mix the ground pork, chopped water chestnuts, chives, and garlic. Add freshly ground black pepper and the remaining soy paste. Mix well. 

Scoop about a Tsp of the pork mixture onto a wonton wrapper, add shrimps, wet the edge with water and seal from one side to the other, make sure no air bubbles are trapped.

Bring water to a boil in a tall sauce pan. Blanch the bok choy (these leaves cook very quickly). Remove. Add the wontons and cook for about 5-7 minutes in boiling water. During the last 2 minutes, use a noodle strainer to blanch the wonton noodles. Note that the blanching time varies, depending on what type you get so make sure you check. Remove the noodles when they are al dente. Strain all the water away. Remove the cooked wontons.

Meanwhile, warm the chicken broth. In a bowl, add 1/3 cup of the broth and the last 6 ingredients. Mix well. Add the strained noodles and toss. Season the remaining broth, divide into 2 small bowls, top with chopped spring onion.

Place the noodles on a plate, arrange the wontons and bok choy around it. Serve with the bowl of broth on the side. 

And in the words of Alton Brown, "I bid you good eats!"