Well, my day has been interesting so far. First of all, I was up till damn near daybreak--Rob introduced me to the wonders of DTS stereo sound and we were up all night listening to remastered stuff from The Doors, Led Zeppelin, The Band, Simon & Garfunkel, and the best of the lot, The Allman Brothers, Live at the Fillmore East. Now, I've heard all of this music before, and own quite of bit of the regular studio releases, but somehow Rob got hold of a bunch of bootlegged DTS versions and the sound is absolutely amazing. Not one bit of hiss from the old master tapes, and every voice and instrument comes through amazingly clear. Oh, and hearing it in 6.1 surround is a nifty treat for the senses. Total ear candy.
I finally called it a night and got a few hours sleep, but when I woke up, I was hungry. It was time to hit the kitchen!
This was the first time I've made Crab Rangoon in several years, but the recipe is simple. All you need for the filling is --
- About 12 ounces of crab meat
- One brick of Philly cream cheese
- Dash of garlic salt
- Worcestershire sauce
- 1/4 cup of half & half
Once the cream cheese is softened, chop up the crab meat and toss it in the bowl with the cream cheese, add the other ingredients and stir it up until it's well blended and the crab breaks down into tiny pieces.
Then you prepare your wonton wraps, brushing the edges with egg wash. A teaspoon of crab filling goes in the middle, seal the edges (and you can experiment with whatever wonton origami shapes you want--it doesn't matter as long as there is no air in the pocket and it's completely sealed).
Once you have a batch made up, heat up a saucepan with veggie oil on medium heat. (I prefer peanut oil, but all I had on hand was canola). I have no idea what the temp is, but you don't want it too hot--they'll easily burn on the outside. Too cool, and they get greasy. Also, make sure you have enough oil so that you can completely submerge the wontons. Anyhow, just drop four at a time in the hot oil, roll them around with a slotted spoon until they're golden brown, remove, and let them drain on a paper towel.
That's all there is to it.
Now, I took a bunch of pictures of the entire process from beginning to end, but for whatever reason, I had the camera set on something like blue sepiatone, so they all turned out looking like I was cooking in an aquarium. The final picture however, turned out somewhat usable.
The first batch made about 16 snacks, and I've got a bunch of leftover filling mix and half of my wonton wraps. I also made a pretty good dipping sauce out of apricot preserves, Dijon mustard, and a splash of honey. It was tasty, but needed a little more zip. Maybe next time I'll hit it with some full-strength horseradish and some freshly grated ginger. But it was still pretty damn good.
Oh, and on the pizza front--remember how I ordered the pizza pan from Amazon late Wednesday night after I went to bed? Well, I also put added a DVD to my order to get it over that $25 threshold for free Super Saver shipping, figuring it would take at least a week or so. Well, less than 12 hours after I placed my order, they emailed me saying that my pizza pan had already shipped out. Woot! Maybe next Wednesday night I'll be dining on home made deep-dish caramelized onion and prosciutto pizza. If the DVD gets here at the same time, I'll be watching L.A. Confidential while feasting on my culinary masterpiece, too.
Mikey
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