Wonton noodle soup

Name: Wonton noodle soup
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 3 h 10 min
Total time: 3 h 35 min
Cuisine: Chinese
Ingredients: 1 kg pork bones (neck, back or spare-rib bones); 3 l water; 20 g ginger (about a 4 cm piece), sliced; 15 g dried flounder (optional; see Tips); 15 g dried shrimp, rinsed (optional); 150 g shrimp shells and heads, saved from the wonton shrimp (optional); 1 tbsp neutral oil; 2 tsp salt, plus more to taste; 1 tsp sugar; 300 g peeled raw shrimp (from about 450 g shell-on), deveined; 1 tsp salt, for cleaning the shrimp; 150 g minced pork, not lean (about 20% fat); ½ tsp salt; ½ tsp sugar; ¼ tsp ground white pepper; 1 tsp Shaoxing wine (Chinese rice wine; optional); 1 tsp sesame oil; 1 egg yolk; 2 tsp cornstarch, plus extra for the tray; 32 thin square wonton wrappers (about 8 cm), plus a few spare; 400 g fresh thin egg noodles (sold as wonton noodles); 300 g choy sum (a leafy Chinese green with slender stems and small yellow flowers) or baby bok choy (a mild Chinese cabbage); 1 tsp neutral oil; 2 spring onions, finely sliced; Ground white pepper, to serve

Shrimp-and-pork wontons with a clean snap, thin springy egg noodles and a clear pork broth deepened with toasted dried flounder. The Cantonese classic, at home.

By the Soupmap Culinary Team

Prep: 25 min
Cook: 3 hr 10 min
Total: 3 hr 35 min
Effort: Takes some care
Serves: 4

Broth richness 3/10

Spice 1/10

Comfort 7/10

Ratings by the Soupmap Culinary Team, not readers.

Dairy-free

Photo: T.Tseng, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Wonton noodle soup is Cantonese cooking at its most precise: a small bowl where three things each have to be right. The wontons are mostly shrimp, bound with a little fatty pork, so they bite back with a clean snap. The broth is clear and savoury rather than heavy. The noodles are thin, springy egg noodles, cooked for barely a minute. Wonton is the Cantonese wan tan, written with characters that read "swallowing clouds", a fair description of the silky wrappers drifting in the bowl.

This version makes a light pork-bone broth and, if you can find it, adds daai dei yu (dried flounder), toasted until it smells of roasted nuts. That toasty, faintly smoky note is what gives a Hong Kong shop broth its character. The shrimp shells go in too, for sweetness.

The mistake most people make is cooking the wontons and noodles in the broth. Both shed starch and turn it cloudy and gluey. Cook them in a separate pot of plain boiling water and the broth stays as clear as you made it.

Method

Start the broth

Put the pork bones in a large pot, cover with cold water and bring to a boil over high heat. Boil for 5 minutes, until a grey scum rises, then drain and rinse the bones and the pot. This quick blanch is what keeps the finished broth clear.
Return the bones to the clean pot with the 3 l water and the ginger. Bring just to a boil and skim, then turn the heat down to a bare simmer, with only a few lazy bubbles breaking the surface. Simmer, partly covered, for 2 1/2 hours, skimming now and then, and make the wontons meanwhile.

Make the filling

Peel and devein the shrimp if needed, keeping the shells and heads in the fridge for the broth. Toss the shrimp with 1 tsp salt and rub them gently for 30 seconds, then rinse well under cold running water. Spread them on kitchen paper and pat them very dry.
Cut about two-thirds of the shrimp into 1 cm pieces. Chop the rest finely, almost to a paste: the paste binds the filling, the pieces give it bite.
Put the shrimp paste in a bowl with the pork, 1/2 tsp salt, sugar, white pepper, Shaoxing wine, sesame oil, egg yolk and 2 tsp cornstarch. Stir hard in one direction with chopsticks for 2–3 minutes, until the mixture turns sticky and clings to the bowl in strands. Fold in the shrimp pieces, then cover and chill for 15 minutes to firm up.

Fold the wontons

Set out the wrappers under a damp tea towel, a small bowl of water and a tray lightly dusted with cornstarch.
Hold a wrapper flat on your palm and put 1 level tablespoon of filling in the middle. With a fingertip, dab a little water on the wrapper all the way around the filling.
Close your hand gently so the wrapper gathers up around the filling like a small sack. With the thumb and forefinger of your other hand, pinch the wrapper together tightly just above the filling, squeezing out any air, so the filling sits in a round ball with the loose edges frilled out above it like a tail. Squeeze the pinch point once more to seal, and set the wonton on the tray.
Repeat with the rest of the filling, keeping the finished wontons apart and covered with a tea towel, and put the tray in the fridge as soon as it's full: raw pork and shrimp shouldn't sit at room temperature while the broth finishes. You should have about 32.

Finish the broth

About 45 minutes before the broth is ready, toast the dried flounder in a dry frying pan over medium-low heat for 1–2 minutes per side, until golden and smelling of roasted nuts. Break it into pieces and add it to the broth with the dried shrimp.
Heat 1 tbsp oil in the same pan over medium-high heat and fry the shrimp shells and heads for 2–3 minutes, until bright orange and fragrant. Add them to the broth and keep it at a bare simmer.
When the 2 1/2 hours are up, strain the broth through a sieve lined with damp muslin or a clean cloth into a clean pot. You want about 2 l: top it up with hot water if you have less, or simmer it down if you have more. Season with 2 tsp salt and the sugar, taste, add more salt if needed and keep hot.

Cook and serve

Bring a large pot of water (at least 4 l) to a rolling boil and warm 4 deep bowls. Add 1 tsp oil and the greens and cook for 1–2 minutes, until bright green and the stems are just tender, then lift them out.
Add the wontons to the same water, in two batches if your pot is small. Boil for 4–5 minutes, until they float, the wrappers turn translucent and the shrimp shows pink through them. Cut one open: the filling should be firm and opaque all the way through, with no pink pork.
Divide the wontons between the bowls and ladle about 450 ml of hot broth into each.
Shake the noodles loose and drop them into the boiling water, stirring with chopsticks. Cook for 30–60 seconds (check the packet), until just tender but still springy, then lift them out, dip them into a bowl of cold water for a few seconds and return them to the boiling water for 10 seconds to reheat.
Drain the noodles very well and pile them on top of the wontons, with the greens alongside. Scatter with spring onion and a pinch of white pepper, and eat at once, before the noodles soften.

Swaps

Cooking for coeliac disease or an allergy? Check every label: the notes below say which ones matter.

Gluten-free

The wrappers and egg noodles are wheat, so a gluten-free version isn't really wonton noodle soup. The closest is to roll the filling into 2–3 cm balls and poach them in the boiling water as shrimp balls until firm and opaque all the way through, 4–5 minutes, then serve them with thin rice noodles labelled gluten-free.
Leave out the Shaoxing wine, which is brewed with wheat, or use dry sherry instead. Check the labels on the dried flounder, dried shrimp and cornstarch, and skip the dry-tossed variation's oyster sauce unless it's labelled gluten-free, as many contain wheat.

Plant-based

This makes a different dumpling soup, since the broth, filling, wrappers and noodles all change. For the broth, simmer 2.2 l vegetable stock labelled vegan with 6 dried shiitake and the ginger for 30 minutes, skipping the dried seafood.
For the filling, mix 250 g pressed firm tofu, crumbled, 100 g finely chopped fresh shiitake and 50 g chopped water chestnuts with the seasonings, using 1 tbsp cornstarch in place of the egg yolk. It will be tender rather than springy.
Wonton wrappers and wonton noodles often contain egg: use ones labelled egg-free or vegan.

High-protein

As written a bowl has roughly 35 g protein. Make a quarter more filling and wrap 10 wontons per bowl instead of 8: about 5 g more.
Add a halved soft-boiled egg to each bowl: about 6 g.
Add 60 g sliced poached chicken breast to each bowl: about 18 g more.

Tips

Dry the shrimp thoroughly. The salt rub firms them and rinses off their slippery coating, but any water left behind makes a loose, watery filling that never turns springy.
Stir in one direction until sticky. Working the filling hard draws out the proteins in the shrimp and pork that bind it, so it cooks up bouncy rather than crumbly. Chilling it afterwards makes it much easier to wrap.
Keep the broth at a bare simmer. A rolling boil churns the fat into the liquid and turns it cloudy and heavy.
No dried flounder? Use the dried shrimp alone, toasted in a dry pan for 2 minutes first. Or, off the heat, steep 10 g katsuobushi (Japanese dried bonito flakes) in the strained broth for 5 minutes and strain again: it gives a similar smoky depth.
Rinse the noodles and keep them on top. Thin egg noodles are made with an alkaline salt that gives them spring but a faintly soapy edge; the quick cold dip rinses it off and firms them. Sitting them on the wontons keeps them out of the broth for longer.
Keep the wrappers covered. They dry out in minutes, and a dry wrapper cracks and won't seal.

Make ahead and storage

Freeze uncooked wontons on their tray until hard, about 2 hours, then pack them into a bag and freeze for up to 1 month. Cook from frozen, allowing 1–2 minutes longer, and check that the filling is cooked through.
Keep folded wontons in the fridge, loosely covered on their cornstarch-dusted tray, and cook them within 3 hours; after that the wrappers turn soggy, so freeze them instead (see above).
Cool the broth quickly in a wide container, then refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months. Bring it back to a full boil before serving.

Variations

Chicken broth: replace the pork bones with 1.5 kg chicken carcasses or wings, blanched the same way, and simmer for 2 hours.
Shrimp-only wontons: use 450 g shrimp and no pork. They cook in 3–4 minutes.
A simpler fold: wet the edges of the wrapper, fold it corner to corner over the filling into a triangle and press out the air as you seal. Bring the two long corners together beneath the filling, dab one with water and pinch them firmly together.
Dry-tossed: for lo mein ("stirred noodles"), toss each portion of drained noodles with 1 tsp oyster sauce and 1 tsp sesame oil, and serve the wontons in their broth on the side.

Reviews & cooks' tips

Reviews and tips from people who've cooked this appear here.