Perfect Pre-Feast Dinner

I have never thought about this before, but what should you eat the night before a huge feast? What is the most appropriate dinner before Thanksgiving? You don't want to have too many leftovers because your fridge will be overflowing tomorrow. Also, I need a meal that works well with throwing in lots of odds and ends to try and empty out the fridge. Lastly, I want something that is so completely not in the realm of thanksgiving and turkey, because you are bound to be completely turkey-ed out by 5 PM tomorrow. Solution: Wonton Soup.

This is a wonderful go to recipe for a chilly night in. It's surprisingly filling though quite light and flavorful. Find a buddy to help fold wontons, it's super fun to makeup new shapes and a great activity to do with someone/some friends. Overall, this is a really easy recipe, but can be a bit time consuming if you don't have help assembling the wontons.

You can virtually add whatever you like into the filling. Just go through your cabinets and see what you have that sounds delicious. I didn't in this recipe because I didn't have any on hand, but these are also great with some chopped shitake mushrooms and chopped shrimp. Also, I don't really measure when I'm making this recipe, just kind of throw things in until it looks good, so I'll do my best to estimate in the recipe.

One other super important tip: make sure you get good quality wonton skins. Do not get those crap skins you can buy at your normal grocery store, I guarantee they will fall apart in your soup. Then you'll end up with a noodle meatball soup rather than wontons. You need to go to your Asian grocery store (my favorite is LeeLee up on orange grove) and get some real wonton wrappers. We went with Peking Brand wonton wrappers and they came out just perfect (only a couple broke that were already very poorly folded by me). Another thing is to make sure you know the difference between wonton and gyoza wrappers. Wonton wrappers are thinner and used for boiling dumplings for soup or frying. Gyoza wrappers are slightly thicker and used for dumplings you want to pan fry. In general, I usually like to use gyoza wrappers because I love nice chewy dumplings. But if you prefer dumplings with a thin skin, you need good quality wonton wrappers.

There are lots of ways you can fold wontons. Here is a great site with all of the different varieties. We do the Taiwan style (Style 5). It doesn't really matter which way you decide to fold them, they'll still taste delicious no matter what you do. Have fun with this recipe, these little dumplings are delicious.

Wonton Soup

For the wontons:

• 1 lb ground pork
• 1 can water chestnuts, drained and chopped
• 4 green onions, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Tbsp. chopped cilantro
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp dry sherry
• 1 tsp oyster sauce
• Sea salt and fresh cracked pepper
• 1 package GOOD wonton skins plus 1 egg for sealing
• Optional: chopped shrimp, chopped shitake mushrooms, chopped bamboo shoots

For the soup:

• 6 c. chicken broth
• A few handfuls of finely chopped chinese cabbage
• 3 cloves whole garlic
• 3 slices of fresh ginger
• 1 tsp. sesame oil
• 1 Tbsp. chopped cilantro
• 1/2 tsp. fish sauce
• 1/2 tsp oyster sauce
• salt and pepper

Mix all of the ingredients together for the filling. Assemble wontons and seal with beaten egg. Set aside. Heat a pot of boiling water. Drop the dumpling into the water and cook until cooked through. In a separate pot, mix everything for the soup. Once the dumplings are done cooking in the boiling water, transfer to the soup using a slotted spoon.