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A large bowl of wor wonton soup loaded with wontons, prawns, sliced BBQ pork, chicken and greens in clear broth
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Soup Chinese restaurant-style Chinese Dairy-free Nut-free

Deluxe Wor Wonton Soup

The loaded house version of wonton soup, with prawns, chicken, char siu and vegetables added to the bowl alongside the wontons. Wor means something like everything together, and the dish is a Chinese-Canadian and Chinese-American restaurant invention rather than anything you would find in Guangzhou. Every addition is cooked or warmed separately and assembled at the end, so the broth stays clear and nothing turns to rags.

Prep30 min
Cook20 min
Servings4
Done at74 °C
Cook mode

Christoph's loaded version, built on the house wonton soup with the additions of a Chinese-Canadian wor wonton, everything cooked separately so the broth stays clear.

Ingredients

Written for a 5 L pot

Units
Temperature
Servings
4

Wontons

  • 24 pork and prawn wontons, from the wonton soup recipe, fresh or frozen

Broth

  • 1 3/4 L chicken stock
  • 10 g fresh ginger, sliced into coins
  • 2 garlic cloves, smashed but whole
  • 30 ml light soy sauce
  • 20 ml Shaoxing wine
  • 8 g sugar
  • 5 ml toasted sesame oil
  • 2 g ground white pepper

The loaded part

  • 200 g raw prawns, peeled and deveined, tails off
  • 200 g chicken breast, sliced thinly across the grain
  • 150 g char siu BBQ pork, thinly sliced; shop-bought is fine
  • 300 g bok choy, quartered lengthwise
  • 100 g mushrooms, sliced; shiitake if you have them
  • 60 g carrot, sliced into thin coins
  • 60 g bamboo shoots, from a tin, drained (optional)
  • 2 scallions, finely sliced

Dietary labels are a guide, not a guarantee. If you have an allergy, read the ingredients yourself.

Method

  1. Make or take out the wontons. This recipe assumes the batch from wonton soup. Frozen ones go straight into boiling water later, no thawing.
  2. Build the broth. Simmer the stock with the ginger coins and smashed garlic for 10 minutes, remove them, then season with the soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, sugar, sesame oil and white pepper. Keep it just below a simmer. Taste it now; this broth is the backbone and everything else is texture.
  3. Poach the chicken in the broth. Slide the sliced chicken into the barely simmering broth and cook 2 to 3 minutes until just opaque, then lift it out with a slotted spoon into a bowl. Poaching gently in the broth seasons the chicken and keeps it tender, where boiling it hard makes it stringy.
  4. Poach the prawns the same way, 60 to 90 seconds, until they just turn opaque and curl into a loose C. A tight O means overcooked. Lift them out to join the chicken.
  5. Cook the vegetables briefly in the broth. Carrot first for 2 minutes, then mushrooms and bamboo for 1 minute, then bok choy for a final minute. Lift each out as it is done. Skim the broth if anything has clouded it.
  6. Boil the wontons in a separate pot of plain water, 4 minutes from fresh or 6 from frozen, until they float with loose translucent skirts.
  7. Assemble in the bowl, not the pot. Wontons in the base, then the chicken, prawns, char siu and vegetables arranged in sections on top. Ladle the hot clear broth over everything and finish with scallions. Building it in the bowl is what makes it look like the restaurant version instead of a stew.

Notes

  • Wor is a restaurant word, not a regional dish. This bowl belongs to Chinese-Canadian and Chinese-American menus, where it is the deluxe upgrade of plain wonton soup. It is worth saying plainly rather than dressing it up as ancient; it is very good and it is about sixty years old.
  • Everything is cooked separately for a reason. Prawns, chicken and greens each want a different length of time, and cooking them together guarantees at least one of them is wrong. Poaching them in sequence in the same broth costs nothing extra.
  • Shop-bought char siu is completely acceptable and is what most people do. If you want to make it, char siu BBQ pork is here and freezes well in slices.
  • Do not let the broth boil hard at any point once the additions go in. A rolling boil breaks up the prawns and clouds everything.
  • This does not keep well assembled. Store leftover broth and additions separately and rebuild the bowl when you reheat.

Ingredient substitutions

  • Shaoxing wine substitutes as elsewhere on this shelf, dry sherry being the closest, mirin acceptable with less sugar, stock plus a splash of rice vinegar for an alcohol-free version.
  • Char siu can be replaced with any good roast pork, or left out entirely, in which case add a little more chicken and prawn. Sliced Chinese roast duck is a legitimate and excellent swap.
  • Bok choy can be any Asian green; choy sum, gai lan and napa cabbage all work, with gai lan needing an extra minute.

Good with

From Christoph Mayer

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