Grandpa used to have a nickname for me when I was young, “Tian (or Tian Tian)” which from mandarin means sweet or sweetie he used to call me. Later in life, that nickname still stuck and dad would call me sweet, sweetie well into my adulthood, despite my protests with rolling of the eyes several times over!

Thirty years later, Grandpa has already gone, Dad still calls me sweet sometimes (ha ha). But more significantly, I have two, really sweet, little girls and I find myself doing the same thing, (re the pet names). Family heritage dishes usually take after sir names (i.e. Mak’s famous wanton noodles). My wantons aren’t famous by any measure however, I thought it be a nice touch to remember a sweet nickname over the generations.

This recipe I did last weekend on the last day of the Chinese New Year (15^th day), since buying my block of Jinhua ham (as above) from Chinatown I had been looking for recipes to showcase the wonderful aromas of the ham.

I did a little internet research, I did find one or two cantonese style superior stock recipes, most use a combination of chicken and the prized Jinhua/chinese ham – however, this recipe is a little of a mish mash of all the soup techniques I have learnt over the years, with some plain experimentation thrown in.

Let’s break it down…deconstructing wantons and the superior broth

The broth – let’s start with that. Every good cook I know has several secret broth recipes. I have a few myself and my family has a few I can’t even share. Essentially, it starts with some bone or animal carcasses thrown in with pig trotters/pig skins and other seemingly weird or nasty looking animal parts boiled over a period of time. The broth also has several additions of other aromatics, sometimes it will be dried seaweed, dried seafood and/or even dried ham.

The Jinhua ham – This is probably an essential ingredient in preparing this broth, you can of course substitute it with parma ham to get a similar result. More importantly, this ham is what gives the umami flavour without the MSG.

The wantons – the key to a tasty wanton lies in the – “fat content” of the pork. There you have it, lean wanton meat produces dry mealy tasting wantons that belong in the bin.

Wanton skins – I didn’t make my own, I bought the ones that looked like there was a little egg in the mix. The square type is for wantons and the round type for shui gao. I think the HK wanton skins seem thinner and better quality and the ones I can get here in Singapore. I’m still on the lookout for a thin wanton skin – leave me a comment if you know where to buy one. Share the recipe too, if you have the know-how on making a thin wanton skin.

The not soggy, bite in your mouth crunchy prawns – My mother used to make these dumplings too, the prawns were not crunchy though, google is most wonderful for this, I found out that by soaking the prawns in a solution of salt and bicarbonate soda I could get that crunchy end result!

That’s most of the ingredients you will probably need for the aromatics, you can substitute the scallops for dried stockfish or even dried cuttlefish. The jinhua ham will need to be prepared beforehand by steaming in water with ginger slices for about 4omins, the ones in the picture have been steamed already.

You could skip that step and just throw the pieces in with the kampong chicken and pork trotters when scalding the carcasses to remove impurities.

Fresh kampong chicken is said to be reared in a manner where they are allowed to roam freely, which makes the flesh firmer and nicer to eat. If you are concerned about the chicken you buy being injected with antibiotics and hormones, it’s a safer bet to get Sakura chicken or organic chicken.

The pork trotters are fresh from the market and are from indonesia, for all the parts it’s easiest to get your butcher to cut them up into smaller parts so you don’t have to do it yourself. I’ve left all the skins on, and will skim off the fats towards the end. The soup gets much more full bodied and tastier this way.

I like my ginger slightly charred. So I do a prestep of frying it up with the Jinhua ham till they are both slightly caramelised.

Add the chicken and fry that up too with the ginger and jinhua ham till you get a little browning on the skin.

In your largest stockpot, this one takes up to 8 litres of water btw! Add your chicken pieces only, plus the pork trotters, leave out the ginger and jinhua ham. Top the water till it just covers the carcasses.

Bring the whole pot to a rolling boil, to scald and remove the impurities, on high heat for 5 to 10 minutes.

Clean your pot and chicken and pork trotters as throughly as you can washing two to three times to get rid of all the scum, blood and extra bits of small bones. It should be gleaming like the ones in the photo.

Add your ginger, jinhua ham, all your dried seafood. I’ve packed them into stock bags if you can see. Add your 3 litres of cool filtered water/tap water. Turn up the heat, bring to a boil and reduce to a low fire and a slow simmer for a clear broth.

Making the filling…

Wanton mince mix – season according to the recipe, I’ve mixed the mince together with the yellow chives and the prawns should be peeled and soaked in a mixture of salt and bicarbonate soda water the day before to alter the texture to a crunchy one. If you don’t have time just soak it for 15 mins before adding to the filling mixture.

If prepping the prawns the day before, the left over prawn heads and shells, can be made into a quick stock, just cover with water and boil on medium heat. Cool and reserve for the broth the next day.

If you are just preparing the prawns with the salt and bicarbonate soda mix for now, just add the remaining heads and shells to the broth.

I took some of the filling I made for the wantons and set it aside to make shui gao, which is a larger sized dumpling that looks like a crescent moon. To this mixture, I added some finely chopped water chesnut, fried stock fish that has been shredded and some fresh jews ears/black fungus.

You can try any other variation you may like! I’m considering a truffle mushroom combination sometime!

The dumpling wrapper is round, wet the sides with water, scoop your filling in the center and press down firmly.

Making gold nugget/tortellini shaped wantons – make the basic triangle and then fold down the sides and press in the extra dough. You will get a shape that looks somewhat like this!

The finished wantons and shui gao ready for cooking. This batch can feed 8 to 10 persons. I usually freeze some for later use.

You will want to cook your wantons and dumplings separately in another vat of boiling water for about 3 to 5mins till the skins turn slightly soft.

If you cook the wantons directly in the superior broth, your broth will become cloudy from the extra starches.

Last steps: your broth will be ready 3 to 4 hours after slowly simmering. Don’t forget to skim off all the fats and oils before serving!

That’s all folks, all that is left is slurping all that golden goodness from the broth and biting into meaty, tender, crunchy dumplings! If you make this tag your dish at #taystesg!