Fried Wontons with Onion Jam and Cheese

Blog's Category: International, My Successes, My Own Fast and Easy, Hors d'oeuvre

Fried Wontons with Onion Jam and Cheese



Intro

It's all started with the idea of making onion jam. In my regular web surfings, I come across onion jam. It looked so good that I decided to try it. Especially I liked raisin in it... Well, after all, I ended up making onion jam WITHOUT raisin (go figure). As I happened to have wonton skins in my freezer for already about half a year, I thought that wontons stuffed with onion jam sounds not bad at all. 
I was more than satisfied with what I come up with and now I'm in a hurry to share it with you.  It may be my new favorite hors d'oeuvre-type food!

Variations

- It can be many variations, although great results I can only guarantee for this particular recipe. Knowing myself, I'll be trying different variations in a future, depending what ingredients I will be having at a time. If something great will come out of this - I'll post it, promise.

Taste Description

It's tasty, delicious, yammy, succulent, and so on... To be more specific, I must tell you that I didn't expect wonton dought to be this great - crunchy and chewy at the same time, it was perfect enclosure for sweetly smooth, cheesy/oniony filling. My first batch, on a first day, we ate  wontons by itself without sauce and were very satisfied. Although they were even more heavenly the next day, when I have made another batch and served it with a sauce. As sometimes happens, carelessly put together some random sauce turned out to be so-o-oo good :)

How to Serve

They are best served hot, with a sauce on a side (I like to serve individual portions of a sauce -  double-dip as much as you want ;)
Although, it happened that first time I served wontons when they cooled down. Guess what - they were still delicious.

Fried Wontons with Onion Jam and Cheese

Onion Jam: 

2 large onions
2 tbs brown sugar
1/3 - 1/2 tsp salt
2-3 tbs rice vinegar
3-4 tbs olive oil

Wontons:

store bought wonton skins
onion jam (see above)
1/2 cup soft cheese (I used Boursin from Costco which is cream cheese-like)
4 oz Pepper Jack cheese cut in thick sticks
oil for frying

Sauce:

1 can tomato sauce
3 garlic cloves, finely grated (or use garlic press)
2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
2 tsp ground cumin
3 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp shriracha sauce
1/2 bunch of fresh cilantro, chopped

- Slice onions thinly (I use mandoline for this) and cook them on a medium heat, in a skillet with olive oil for about 15 minutes. Add salt and sugar and cook until it becomes pasty and caramel colored. Add vinegar, cokk stirring for another minute or two and take off the heat.
- To make a sauce, mix all ingredients together. Adjust sugar, garlic or shriracha sauce to your liking.

- Arrange batch of wonton skins on a working surface and, on the each of them, place: 1/2 tsp onion jam, 1/3 tsp of soft cheese and 1 stick of Pepper Jack cheese. Holding wonton on your palm, dip your another hand's finger in a cup with a water, wet wonton edges and fold wonton in a half. Use your fingers to secure edges nicely. It should hold very well. Make all wontons and set them aside (if you have made all of them, cover with a plastic wrap to avoid overdrying).

- Pour about 1/2 -1 cup of olive oil in a skillet and let it heat up until almost smoking. Turn heat to a medium-low and fry wontons on both sides. Be careful not to burn as they fry quickly. Remove wontons on a paper towel and then transfer to a serving plate.

- Serve with a sauce. Enjoy!

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