Goat Cheese Wontons

When your husband works endless hours and every single holiday and you are living in a city/town where you have zero family and zero friends you have to dig deep to make things special for the kids.   I’m hoping that the traditions we establish will have the ability to make our kids feel more grounded in this space we are now calling home.  New Year’s Eve is a holiday we actually have a couple established traditions for.  It is our fourth New Year’s as a family and the kids are starting to remember things we do from year to year.  One of our favorite traditions is making goat cheese wontons.  It is one that kids can help with and it is fairly quick and easy too.  My family started making these in the 90’s.  I had gotten my mom a Susan Branch cookbook one year for Christmas.  Her books are adorable. Really sweet little illustrations and kind ideas of gifts to share throughout the year.  Sort of shabby chic meets New England country.  Her wonton recipe has become a family staple for us and, although I do not have the book at my house, I remember enough of the concept that the finished product still evokes that memory of standing in my mom’s kitchen eating them faster than she could cook them.  In the 90’s goat cheese was nearly impossible to find in our little town.  We persevered though and I’m so glad we did.  These little crunchy wontons are possibly the best things you will ever taste.  Disclaimer….you will eat them all…and if you don’t you might find yourself standing at your fridge, door open, in the middle of the night eating the rest of them cold.

I did not measure anything for this.  I just went with instinct.  You will need sour cream, cream cheese, goats cheese, parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, thyme, garlic, scallions and oregano. Please use fresh herbs.  It makes a huge difference here.  You also need one egg yolk.  Take all the ingredients and pulse them in a food processor until they are creamy.  You can find wonton wrappers pretty easily these days.  They are usually in the produce section of the market.  We love these so we bought two packs.  Place a small bowl of water next to your workspace.  Once your filling is made take out the wrappers and gently rub the edges of the  wrapper with water.  The key is not to overstuff the wonton wrapper.  Trust me on this.  I know you are going to want to add a lot of filling.  Don’t.  Just make twice as many wontons.  Rub the edges with water and then put about 1/2 teaspoon of filling in the center.  Fold the edges together to make a triangle.  Rub water on the two edges you folded and pull them up together as you grab the third corner and then pinch them tight.  Set aside.  Once they are all completed you are ready to go.  We cook ours in a shallow frying pan filled a third of the way with vegetable oil which has reached about 350 f. The wontons are gently placed in the oil and flipped after about one to two minutes.  You want them to be golden and crunchy.  Once they are done let them rest on a paper towel.  We like to toss some extra thyme on ours at the end.

These are so good.  I’m not even kidding about this.  The herbs add so much flavor and the cheeses melt inside the wrapper.  They are hot and crunchy and disappear so quickly.  Make them! Eat them! Love them! They make us feel a little bit more at home on New Year’s.