Greetings, great citizens of the interwebs! I’m Amanda Hutchinson, junior journalism major, axolotl owner, and self-proclaimed foodie. The lovely Francesca Toscano and I are tag-teaming the Buzzblog every Monday to share with you the best of Ithaca gastronomy. I’ll be taking a look at everything fresh and local and creating recipes featuring what’s “in” this week.
The idea came about when I bought a vegetable share from Early Morning Farm at the beginning of the semester; each week, I go down to Gimme Coffee on State Street and get a box of whatever the farm has fresh that week (and maybe a croissant…). Armed with my box o’ vegetables, I wanted to find recipes that were not only good but also doable in my Circles kitchen. Each of these are personally taste-tested first, so I hope you like them!
The feature vegetable: bok choi. Also known as Chinese cabbage.
The recipe: wonton soup. Why? Because that was the first thing that came to mind. A restaurant back home throws bok choi in their soup and it’s awesome.
¼ lb ground pork (I had chops, so I cubed up two and threw them in the food processor)
1 clove garlic, chopped
Black pepper
Chinese five spice
Soy sauce
Nuoc mam (Vietnamese fish sauce)
Wonton wrappers
10c broth (I did 4:1 chicken to beef)
Bok choi, cut into reasonable pieces
1. Mix the ground pork with the garlic, pepper, Chinese five spice, soy sauce, and nuoc mam (these are to taste).
2. Using a teaspoon, put a bit of filling into the center of each wonton, lightly wetting the edges to smush them closed-ish.
3. Heat the broth in a large pot with soy sauce and nuoc mam to taste until boiling, then place the wontons in the pot. Cook about 5 minutes (or until the pork is cooked), throw the bok choi in, and cook another minute.
Comments from the peanut gallery:
• Wegmans doesn’t have wonton wrappers (or I’m just not looking hard enough), but making them by hand is a pain without a pasta maker, so look around to different stores to see if they have them.
• If you do pork roast like I did, you can save some of it, cook it separately, slice it thinly and put that on top of the soup. The aforementioned place back home does that too.
• I’ve also seen other wonton fillings like shrimp and whatnot, so have fun with it.
• The leftover filling (of which there will be plenty) and bok choi can be turned into Asian nachos. Brown up the pork, throw over some Tostitos with cheese and shredded bok choi.