Wanting Won Tons?

This weekend's experiment was not a main dish as it has been in the past.  I didn't have work Friday and spent the day trying to decide what to make but everything I could think of was desserts!  Wontons have been something of a curiosity to me for the past little while so I decided to make those.  Unfortunately, nothing else oriental sounded good to me, so there was no meal to go with them.  Actually, for lunch/dinner I had my semi-famous "Uncle Rick's Mac and Cheese" which is almost more like a tomato macaroni soup heavy on the macaroni. 

I wasn't sure if it would be possible to find won ton wrappers in the wonderful Delta grocery stores (though I have since been informed that I could have) but the idea of making my own sounded interesting anyways so I searched for a recipe.  The one I used is quite simple, but not at the same time.  Making the dough itself was easy, but rolling it so thin? Not so much.  More on that later.

The recipe came from About.com.  Before you bother going there, I'm actually going to put that one on this blog since its so short and simple.

1 egg
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
about 1/2 cup water
extra flour to flour your rolling surface (or if you're like me to fix the dough after adding too much water)

Put the flour in one bowl and everything else (only 1/4 cup of water for now) in another.  Mix the bowl with the egg and add it to the other bowl, adding water as needed.  Rather than making a dough and then kneading it, I chose to just mix the two bowls by kneading them together.  Doing this, I only had to knead the dough for a very short time before it was "a smooth, workable dough" as suggested by the original recipe. 

Now the hard part.  Dough- at least mine- doesn't like to be rolled out that thin.  Maybe I'm just no good with a rolling pin.  Either way, the dough would not roll.  I found that if you take just a very small piece of dough it will roll thinner, but then you have to roll out each won ton wrapper individually!  This worked okay for me since I was only making a couple for my own personal food, but if you were trying to make them in any large quantity you're going to have a problem.  That is one problem I definitely hope to solve.  After rolling it out cut the dough into squares and you have wrappers.

The rest is pretty simple though.  Put some oil on the stove at a low heat- barely enough to bubble when you add something to it.  Mix whatever you want to put in your won tons.  Experiment!  Be creative!  I've had a lot of fun trying different combinations to see how they would work.  Simply put a spoonful of the filling (proportional to the size of the wrapper) in the middle of the dough square.  Wet your finger and run it along the edges of the wrapper to make them sticky.  Try different ways of folding them.  Be creative.  This is a fun snack to make- maybe even good date material ;)  Dump the won ton in the oil and let it sit until golden brown- flipping occasionally to ensure even cooking.  I prefer for things to cook fast, so I started with really hot oil.  This works for some things, but won tons do not fit that category.  Turn the heat down, take it slow. Let them cool and enjoy your creation!