Chinese · Soup
Wonton Noodle Soup
Pork and shrimp wontons and thin egg noodles served together in a clear chicken and dried shrimp broth, the broth doing as much work as the dumpling.
Also known asWonton mee · Southeast Asia
CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped and colour-adjusted for this site.
Method
Put the 400 g chicken thigh, 1.4 L water, 15 g fresh ginger and 10 g dried shrimp in a large pot and bring to the boil, skimming off any foam that rises, for 10m.
Dried shrimp is simmered into the broth rather than the filling, so the whole bowl carries its savoury depth rather than just the dumpling floating in a plainer stock.
Lower the heat and simmer gently, uncovered, for 30m, until the broth is fragrant and the chicken is cooked through. Lift out the chicken, and once cool enough to handle, shred the meat from the bone and set it aside. Strain the broth, discarding the solids, and stir in the 1 spring onion (15 g), 20 ml light soy sauce, 5 ml toasted sesame oil, 1 g ground white pepper and 4 g fine sea salt. Keep warm.
Meanwhile, combine the 150 g plain flour, 1 egg (50 g), 20 ml water and 1 g fine sea salt in a bowl and bring together into a firm dough, then knead for 8m until smooth.
Cover the dough and rest it for 15m at room temperature.
Combine the 150 g pork mince, 150 g shrimp, 1 spring onion (15 g), 5 g fresh ginger, 8 ml light soy sauce, 5 ml toasted sesame oil, 1 g ground white pepper, 2 g fine sea salt, 3 g caster sugar and 8 g tapioca starch in a bowl and stir hard in one direction until sticky and cohesive.
Roll the rested dough out thinly and cut it into small squares, keeping them stacked and covered. Spoon a little filling into the centre of each square, gather the corners up around it and twist to seal into a small purse.
Blanch the 200 g napa cabbage in a pot of boiling water until just wilted, then lift out and divide between serving bowls. In the same water, cook the 240 g dried egg noodles until tender and divide between the bowls. Boil the wontons in a separate pot of water for 12m, until they float and the wrappers turn translucent, then lift into the bowls with the shredded chicken. Ladle the hot broth over each bowl and scatter with the 1 ½ spring onions (25 g).
Common pitfallNoodles and wontons cooked in the same pot cloud the broth with starch. Boil each separately and only bring them together in the bowl, with the clear broth added last.
The word wonton is far older than the noodle dish built around it. It appears as húntún in Chinese sources reaching back to the Tang dynasty, long before the specific combination of dumpling, egg noodle and broth that now carries the name existed as a single dish [1]. That combination is a Guangzhou creation, formalised during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), when it developed as a noodle-house dish in the city rather than as a home-cooked one [2].
Its move beyond Guangdong is comparatively well documented, and comes down to one named figure. Mak Woon-chi, credited in Hong Kong as the wonton noodle tradition's own legend, brought the Guangzhou style south and opened what became Mak's Noodle, and despite how completely the dish is now identified with Hong Kong, it had only been available there since the early 1940s [2]. The dish today is Cantonese in origin by every source consulted here, though it has since travelled on: versions served in Singapore and Malaysia depart from the Hong Kong bowl in their noodles, their broth and their garnishes, while keeping the same wonton-and-noodle structure at the centre [2].
What distinguishes wonton noodle soup from a dumpling served in broth is that neither element is treated as the point on its own. The wontons are made small and few rather than filling the bowl, the noodles are a springy, thin egg noodle rather than a filler, and the broth carrying both is built with its own savoury depth, traditionally from dried flatfish or shrimp, rather than left as a plain background liquid.
Sources
- Wonton noodles, WikipediaOn the Tang-dynasty origin of the word wonton and the dish's identification as Cantonese.
- How Does Hong Kong's Version of Wonton Noodles Compare With Singapore's or Malaysia's?, South China Morning PostOn the dish's origin in Guangzhou during the Qing dynasty and Mak Woon-chi's role in bringing it to Hong Kong in the early 1940s.