Early Look: The Best Fried Wontons (in my opinion)

I have probably overly developed opinions on the topic of deep fried wontons.

Everybody loves a deep-fried wonton, of course, but they’re among my favorite dishes to order at a Cantonese restaurant. Given that they’re a perennial foreigner favorite, I’m probably living up to somebody's stereotype somewhere… but they’re just a fantastic snack to have alongside a cold beer, and — I have to say — particularly excellent next to a bowl of good Cantonese congee.

But to me, not all fried wontons are created equal. I’ve feel that there are general three major categories of fried wontons that you can find outside at restaurants:

1. Hefty Doughy Wontons. If you’ve mostly had fried wontons in the context of American takeout-style Chinese food, this is likely the style of wonton that you’ve enjoyed. I don’t hate this style of wonton, as the thick wrapper confers a tangible advantage: it allows you to pack a veritable meatball’s worth of filling inside. Still, the thickness has a downside – when frying, the wonton skin can often end up rather hard (if aiming for crunch) or doughy (if aiming for proper doneness). After all, there’s a reason we don’t deep fry Biang Biang noodles.

2. Airy Wafery. This is an increasingly common sight in fried wontons in Guangdong, and I can’t stand it. Steph doesn’t understand my angst on the subject – she rather enjoys them, as they do have the advantage of being lighter and less filling. They’re made by using pre-packaged spring roll wrappers as the wonton wrappers: store bought spring roll wrappers keep better and produce a higher quality end result than store bought wonton wrappers, so I understand the logic. But when I’m ordering deep fried wontons I want a deep fried wonton, not some sort of spring roll-wonton Frankenstein.

3. Thin Crispy. This type of wonton is my goldilocks. It’s made by deep frying a thin-skinned Cantonese wonton, and it’s got this sort of wonderfully crispy blistered exterior. Because of the thin skin, you unfortunately can’t stuff a whole meatball inside – generally you’re looking at about a ½ tsp worth of a simple pork filling – but that small amount makes for dead simple wrapping procedure, and the wonton skin itself is absolutely perfect.

Today we wanted to show you how to make thin, crispy wontons… but I do want to emphasize that none of these approaches are intrinsically superior. I have my personal preference, as you likely have yours!

Lastly, if you're curious, while I posted this over on the community tab on YouTube... the other day we sat down and chatted with Kaiser Kuo on Sinica about food and Chinese regional cuisines. It was a lot of fun, so if you're looking for something to listen to, check it out :)