Pork & Coriander Wontons

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Feature Ingredient: Coriander

Coriander is a herb native to regions in Europe to Africa to Asia! It is also known as 'cilantro' from its Spanish name. The entire plant is edible, however the seeds and leaves are most typically used in cooking. The roots are also used in dishes to create a more intense flavour. E.g. in curries. It is often found in Mexican (e.g. salsa, guac)  Chinese, Indian, Mediterranean, and African cuisine, to name a few. Coriander, I find, is actually quite controversial; some people love it and others hate it with a burning passion! Some studies have shown that people's aversion to the herb may be caused by genetics! Nevertheless, if you do like coriander, here's a great recipe for you:

Recipe: Pork & Coriander Wontons

Serves 8-9

Ingredients:

500g minced pork

1 bunch of shallots, chopped

1 bunch of coriander, chopped

2 tbsp cooking wine

2 tbsp garlic powder

3 tsp salt

3/4 cup of water

1 packet of wonton pastry wraps

Method:

1. Combine the mince, garlic powder, salt and cooking wine. Mix throughly with your hands.
2. Combine with the chopped shallots and chopped coriander. Again, mix with your hands. Add a bit of water, then mix until combined in the mixture. Continue this process until all the water is used.
3. Scoop a a teaspoon amount of filling into a wonton wrapper. Fold the top corner over the filling. Then wet the back of the right side corner and twist to join with the left side corner. The drop of water should hold the two sides together. 
4. The wontons can then be frozen (for storage) or cooked by boiling for 10 - 15 minutes topped with some additional chopped shallots.

Here are some snaps!

The roughly chopped shallots and coriander

Mince with seasonings

Mixing the mince and herbs to create the filling

Start with the square wonton skin facing like so

Add the filling

Bring down the top corner to corner the filling entirely

Join one side corner with the other to create your wonton!

These made about 85 wontons

Ratings/Comments:

Price: Approximately $3.50 per serving!

Difficulty: 3/5 

Taste: 5/5

Overall: 5/5

(1 being lowest/not good - 5 being highest/best)

This is a really delicious and warming dish, great if you're going through Winter in the Northern Hemisphere. It's almost like a comfort meal but actually relatively healthy. The only difficult component to this recipe is mastering the wonton folding technique, but hey, once you do master it you can show it off to all your friends at your next dinner party. It also can be a bit time consuming to make initially, but it will really save you some time in the long term when you need a quick hot dinner - just throw them in some hot water and voilà (ok, maybe not that simple). You can also add other ingredients to your wonton soup/broth - tofu, noodles, fish cake, veggies etc. They can pretty much go with anything! Hope you get to try this one out.

- C