Anyhow, 'sis asked for appetizers, etc. That was my job. I never know what I'm going to make until I start at the grocery store. I was planing on making some kind of Italian sausage dumpling/pot sticker. I made these spinach/garlic/mushroom ones once that were to die for and now that I know how to use Wonton Wrappers, I think that everything... let me repeat, EVERYTHING should be wrapped in wonton and fried/sauteed/steamed in them. But as I walked around the store I remembered the Lean Cuisine commercials I've seen lately, they make a Peking ravioli. And I've been craving Peking Ravioli. So I thought to myself... "self, you can do that!" So I whipped out the iPhone did a quick Google search, looked at one recipe to find out what kind of meat went in Peking ravioli, and what spices. Retrieved said ingredients and went to my parents' house and proceeded to cook, from memory of aforementioned" recipe". Partly becauseI couldn't find it again, and partly because it's more challenging and fun to just toss things into a pan!
The ingredients are basic enough, I know what it's supposed to taste like, I'm just going to toss stuff in and play.
Ingredients:
- 1lb of ground pork (PORK! Who knew! I had no idea that Peking ravioli was pork)
- Sesame Oil
- Soy Sauce
- Fresh Ginger root (get the tiniest piece you can find, mine cost just 3cents! if you can't get a little one, it DOES freeze)
- Fresh Garlic, 1 clove
- Scallions (fresh, not dried)
- 1 package of Wonton Wrappers - found in the cold aisle near the veggies, usually near bagged salad and sprouts
Steps:
- Making the Meat
- About 1/4 cup of scallions, finely chopped across the board
- 1 garlic clove, smashed and chopped into a fine "mush" so you have approx. 1T
- 1 piece of ginger, the diameter of a quarter and at a 1 centimeter thickness, sliced, smashed and chopped into a fine "mush" so you also have about 1-2T
- Non-Stick frying pan, large enough for your ground pork.
- Drizzle generously with the sesame oil, this isn't for non-stick purposes, it's for flavor infusing
- Drizzle even more generously with soy sauce
- combined, if you NEED to measure, you want the soy sauce AND sesame oil to both add up together to about 1/4 cup
- Add the pork, add the scallions, add the ginger, add the garlic
- Take a wooden spoon and start mashing and stirring all ingredients together
- Turn on Med-High Heat and fry up until cooked through, remove from heat and put aside so it can cool enough that your fingers can touch the meat without burning you.
- Making the Ravioli
- You need a small bowl of water to wet your finger with for the wontons
- Now, some might call these pot-stickers, some might call them dumplings, others ravioli. Whatever you want to call them, they were yummy and this recipe worked.
- Prep a cookie sheet by spraying it with cooking spray, this is just an area where you can put your prepped ravioli before cooking them. The spray prevents them from sticking.
- Lay out your wontons. I do 6 at a time.
- Put small amount of meat mixture in the center of the wonton. Not so little that you hardly have any meat, but also not too much that you can't close and seal it. It'll take you a couple to get the right amount and then you'll start cruising through them.
- Wet your finger and moisten 1/2 the border of the wonton. If it's a square (usually is) then moisten just 2 sides of it, finger width.
- Fold over the dry side onto the wet and press them together really well to seal them up
- You can leave them like this in the triangle shape or you can fold the corners back or around, or whatever. I fold the corners back to make it look like a house with flaps.
- Anyhow, work through and finish off the pack, or the pork, whichever comes first.
- Pan Frying:
- Non-stick pan - generous drizzle of sesame oil - heat up nice and hot
- Start placing your ravioli into the pan one at a time and fill the pan, but don't fill it so much that they can't breathe and you can't get a spatula in there, you need to be able to turn them
- This is going to be a look and feel thing, you need to keep watching them. Let them saute in the pan until golden brown on both sides.
- Once golden brown, take them out and put aside, do another batch, and repeat until they're all cooked.
- Sauce:
- I did not make my own sauce. Next time.
- The "Ethnic Foods" aisle actually had a "pot sticker dipping sauce" so I grabbd that. Otherwise, I believe that Soy Sauce, Scallions, Hoison Sauce and Dark Rice Vinegar in some combo make up this sauce.
- I did however quickly chop a few scallions and toss them into the store bought sauce.
- Put everything on a plate and serve. Be sure you put a few aside for yourself, because as soon as you drop them to the table, they're going to disappear!!
I pan fried mine because I wanted them quick, and I wanted to make sure this first time around that the pork was definitely cooked through.
- Option 1: Rather than fry up the ground pork, put it in a bowl and mix the ingredients in like you would for meatloaf or meatballs. Place raw meat onto wrappers and seal up. When you seal the wontons for these, make sure there are no holes or tears, or I believe this doesn't work. Boil water. Drop them into the boiling water and let cook. When they're done and cooked through, THEN pan fry them for color.
- Option 2: Prep the raw meat the same way as option 1, but rather than boil, prep a double boiler and steam them. Once cooked through via steam, THEN pan fry them for color.
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