NOTHING WRONG WITH A WONTON

It wasn't long before these raw wontons were cooked and being devoured by the kids

Our latest 'discovery' on the food front: wontons! Well, I've often eating them at restaurants but we'd never made them at home and they seemed like the perfect project to share with the kids. They were! A fun, messy, busy little cooking project. The first time I made these I was merely helping at my sister's place as they made these for my niece's birthday dinner and we enjoyed the process so much, including the eating bit, that we've made them at home a few times lately. Yummo. And now anytime we have a 'wonton craving' we'll pop into Footscray for a great choice of wonton wrappers.

We were inspired by the multitide of wonton recipes out there and eventually came up with our own concotion of the following.

• minced chicken or pork (we're looking forward to trying them with prawns)
• grated and/or finely chopped vegetables of any type (carrot and brocoli works well)
• grated or finely chopped shallots/spring onion or onion (we prefer the spring onion option)
• herbs (corander and mint are so great with these)
• hoisin sauce and/or sweet chili sauce (our kids tolerate only a little) and/or oyster sauce
• honey (occassionally I've added a touch of honey to the mixture)

You can play around with quantities depending on both the amount you're making and your taste preferences. Lay out your wontons and brush all edged with egg. Pop a heaped teaspoon full of the mixture in the middle of the wrapper and close by pulling up to create a little parcel. The wrapper will stick and stay together well if you pinch it inwards. Either place them in a steamer or fry in hot oil (you need quite a bit of oil and it should be very hot; you can deep fry them but I seem to get away with shallow frying instead).