Sun nin fai lok!  Happy lunar new year to you all!  In celebration of this date, we are back to Chinese food (yay!)  We were tasked to bring an appetizer to our family gathering this year, and what better way to start your meal than with chili wontons?

My family name character translated from Chinese means Thunder, so today I present to you Thunder Chili Wonton!

Ingredients

• 2 lbs Ground Pork
• 1 Package Shrimp (cooked or uncooked)
• 1 can Water Chestnut
• 1/4 cup Chives
• 1/8 cup Garlic Salt
• 1/8 cup Worchestershire sauce
• 1/4 cup Soy Sauce
• 1/4 cup Cooking Wine
• 1/4 cup Sesame Oil
• 1/8 cup Corn Starch
• 100+ Wonton Wrappers

Filling

Grab your ground pork and throw it into a large bowl.  Add the garlic salt to it, and give it a stir.

Prep your water chestnuts by dicing it into small pieces.  You don’t want to make this into a paste, as the whole point is to give the wonton texture.  Cut the shrimp into small chunks as well — you want to be able to recognize that it’s shrimp in there!

Dice the chives into the same size pieces as the water chestnut

Add all of your liquids into the pork.  Add the sesame oil, soy sauce, and worchestershire sauce.  If you feel baller, add brandy instead of cooking wine.  I am cheap, so cooking wine it is!

Stir everything together well.  Add the corn starch and repeat the mixing.

Throw in the shrimp next.

And then the water chestnut and chives.

Mix super thoroughly!  Every spoonful should have an even amount of every ingredient.

Wrapping

This is the most time consuming step by far.  This could take hours, so set yourself up infront of a tv while you do this!

Place a wonton wrapper in your hand, and spoon 1 teaspoon worth of filling into the centre.

Wet your finger, and trace the edges of the wrapper.  Egg whites work even better if you have them.  Fold the wrapper in half and seal each edge tight.

Wet your finger again, and dab the bottom corner of one edge.  Bring it around to the other side bottom corner and form a tight seal.

Congrats!  You have just made your first wonton!  Now repeat this x100+!  There are many different ways of wrapping wonton, so use whatever method you are comfortable doing.

We actually made enough filling for all of our wrappers, so we made some potstickers out of the rest.

Cooking

Since these are fresh, they don’t take long to cook.  Boil them for about 7 mins and they will be ready.  Throw them into a bowl, and add your favourite chili oil on top.  I love XO sauce, especially the one from Mr. Ko!

I didn’t want to kill Jax, so I didn’t smother them in chili oil like I normally would for myself 🙂

Ta da!  There you have it!  Thunder Chili Wonton!  These freeze extremely well, so don’t be afraid to bag ’em up for a rainy day.  If cooking from frozen, they will take about 12 mins instead.