Fried Cheese Wontons – Gluttonous Delight at Home!

That's right friends, I've figured out how to make one of my restaurant favorites at home.  Deep-fried cheese wontons – a gluttonous delight if there has ever been one.  

When I first made these treats, I sprayed them with olive oil and baked them at 425 degrees for 10 minutes.  Unfortunately, while they were good, they were slightly underwhelming.  So my second attempt involved deep frying these bite-size morsels, which resulted in a much tastier albeit unhealthier version.  

I still need to do more to punch up the flavor, and I fear that may require adding a ton of salt a la restaurants.  I'll report back as a I continue to perfect this recipe, but below is how I currently have made these deep fried delights (basically a mash-up of the Pioneer Woman and All Recipes approaches).

Ingredients (4 – 6 appetizer portions)

• 4 oz. of light cream cheese, at room temperature
• 2 scallions, thinly sliced
• 1.5 tsp. Sriracha
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• Splash of soy sauce
• Additional salt and pepper to taste
• Egg roll wrappers (Nasoya brand), cut into 4 rectangular pieces or round / square dumpling wrappers
• Small bowl of water

Directions

•  Heat 1/2 inch of vegetable oil in a small pot or dutch oven, on low-medium heat, aiming for approx. 340 – 350 degrees

• As the oil heats, mix together all of the ingredients (sans dumpling wrappers).  Taste to adjust seasonings as needed.

• After the filled is mixed, prepare the dumpling skins for wrapping.  Either cut larger egg roll wrappers (the only thing I could find at the grocery store) into four smaller pieces or use dumpling-sized wrappers.

• Then take a 1 – 1.5 tsp. spoonful of filling and put in the middle of the wrapper.  I settled on the "square flower" dumpling wrapping approach after these somewhat failed attempts with the other shapes below:

• Ok, back to the approach I found fastest and simplest.  Place the mixture in the middle (or maybe slightly off-center like below, ha!).  Then using a pastry brush or your finger, liberally brunch water along the edges of the dumpling wrapper.  

• Bring two opposite corners toward each other and press the sides together.  It's important to have enough water and moisture along the edges of the wrappers so they can easily press together.

• Then bring one of the other corners to the middle and seal to the middle top folds.  Repeat with the remaining side, and then seal up the open sides until you reach the outer ends of the wonton.  Repeat process with additional wrappers until you have used up all of the mixture.

• Before frying, check your oil temperature to make sure it's in that 340 – 350 degree range, or check temp. by frying a piece of the wonton wrappers.

• Add the filled wontons to the oil – I found it's ok to crowd them in if you are using a heavy-bottomed pot – and fry until browned or about 1 minute.  If you don't have enough oil in the pot to fry the tops of the wontons, just flip them over to fry for approx. 20 seconds until the tops get browned (thank you YouTube for this tip!).

• Cool on some paper towel-lined plates for approx. 5 – 10 minutes, and then serve immediately!