captureDelights: Delightful Won Tons Part 1 (Recipe)

Delightful Won Tons Part 1 by JWong

14-18 oz of pork shoulder

16-18 medium size shrimp

6-8 dried shitake mushrooms

1/2 cup of dried cloud black fungus

6 green onions

1) Boil some water and put dried ingredients into a bowl. Once water comes to a boil, dump water into bowl and let it soak in the boiled water for a couple of hours. If you don't want to wait, put ingredients into a bowl and let it soak over night. Cut the stems off of the mushrooms but save them later for soup base. You can cook the mushrooms in broth for enhanced flavor (optional). Rinse the fungus with cool water and set aside.

2) Rinse the pork and shrimp and set aside. We'll first start by mincing the pork.

3) Traditional won tons don't use ground pork from the market. Everything is done from scratch...sometimes including the skin! Start by cutting the fat off the pork. I like my won tons a little leaner but still preserving some fat for flavor. After you have removed some fat around the edges of the meat, cut it into small pieces. As you can see, I have two knives for easy mincing.

4) After I had battled with the pork, I decided to use a hammer! Grab some plastic wrap and cover up the meat. Get ready to pound the meat till it is minced!

5) ...several pounds later and a dual cleaver smashing you'll get meat that looks like this!

6) Next you'll have to mince the shrimp as well. The easiest way to do this is by smashing the shrimp with a cleaver in one motion. You're almost pancaking the shrimp but make sure you're going from one side to the other.