I made Wontons

I've been watching My Kitchen Rules for a few weeks now and I usually don't get inspired by their creations. They use lots of seafood and other meats that could be costly if they don't get eaten and the fact that my children are very fussy eaters. I get jealous that most contestants have memories of meals their family has always eaten. This year there were a couple of Asian inspired recipes that I found interesting BUT due to the children I'd never make.

So when all the contestants had to create a dish with the mince as their core ingredient I watched to see if I could learn to do something different that the kids would eat. The army boys made small individual lasagna using mince and wonton wrappers. I thought that it was great but because of the size of my kitchen at the moment I'd need to be very organised to create all the elements that the boys did.

With this in mind I decided I'd try to make a mince mix and make wontons using a bolognaise inspired wonton. I wanted to boil my wontons instead of frying them so that the kids would have a healthy meal while getting a few vegetables hidden in the mince mix.

After watching a few You tube video's on how to shape the Wonton's  I quickly realised that using a wet bolognaise mixture won't work so I created a ricotta based mixture. I pre-cooked my mince but I think if I was to make these again I'd use the mince raw and steam them next time. So this is what I did.

Megan's Wontons

500g mince

cooking spray

half a red capsicum, finely diced

20 mushrooms, either finely sliced or diced

1 head of broccoli, trimmed

4 spring onions, thinly sliced

2 eggs, beaten

250g ricotta cheese

40 Wonton wrappers

Method:

1. Cut up all your vegetables. Spray a medium hot frying pan and cook them off until they're soft.

2. Add the mince to the frying pan and break the mince up as it cooks.

3. Remove from the frying pan and place in a bowl to cool. Once everything has cold add the ricotta cheese and the beaten eggs. Mix well so that everything comes together.

4. Place a wonton wrapper on a clean work surface. Place 1 heaped teaspoonful of filling in the centre of the wrapper. Brush the edges of the wrapper lightly with a little water.

5. Fold the wrapper in half diagonally to enclose filling and form a triangle. Press the air bubbles out so that the mixture is enclosed.

6. Pull the top and bottom corners up to meet each other, so that 1 corner overlaps the other slightly. This motion forms a pouch. Press the ends together to seal.

Close up of one of my lovely wontons.

7. Refrigerate with putting a pot of water on the element to boil.

8. Once the water has come to the boil place 8 to 10 wontons in the pot and cook for 4 - 5 minutes. You will know they are ready when they raise to the top of the pot.

9. Remove from the pot with a slotted spoon to drain the water and place into a bowl.

10. Dress with your favourite Asian sauce e.g. soy sauce

Hope you have fun making these. I made all forty of these in about 45 minutes (that's with children coming in and out of the kitchen) and we were eating them within an hour of starting. You could organise yourself during the day so that when it was close to dinner time all you had to do was cook and eat.

Megan