My Michigan Wine Tasting Party, Part 3: Chinese Chicken Salad in Wonton Cups

Posting the recipes from this event is going to take waaay longer than locating and cooking said recipes, what with the travelling and the beginning of the end-of-the-school-year madness and people at work getting sick so I’m working extra shifts and the weather sometimes getting nicer so I feel obligated to clean things in my house. The world is full of distractions these days.

It's surprisingly hard to take attractive pictures of food

This recipe is basically for a salad dressing, because it’s delicious and what you do with it is entirely up to you. I suspect a jar of this is going to live in our refrigerator for a while. I used it on chicken, chopped up and mixed with a little cucumber, green onion, and cilantro and served in wonton cups garnished with some black sesame seeds. The original recipe calls for lettuce and chopped veggies in addition to the chicken, making it an actual salad. It’s a hearty enough dressing that I can see using it on a flank steak on the grill, too.

It’s a pretty intense dressing, so less is more when you’re using it. Tweak the amounts to suit your own taste. The original recipe is from Perfect Pairings: A Master Sommelier's Practical Advice for Pairing Wine with Food by Evan Goldstein and Joyce Goldstein. As the name implies, it's a very straightforward look at food and wine pairings - and the recipes are just fantastic. Highly recommended reading. 

Chinese Chicken Salad Dressing

1 teaspoon finely minced garlic
3 tablespoons finely minced fresh peeled ginger (yes, use the stuff in jars, it’s a million times easier)
2 tablespoons hot mustard (I used Chinese hot mustard because it was in my fridge, but you could also swap out some dry mustard and add a little water)
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons white or rice vinegar
2 tablespoons sesame oil (the dark kind)
Salt to taste

Put everything in a Mason jar and shake to combine. I imagine it'll keep for a week or so in the fridge, but I found myself putting it on everything so it didn't make it that long. 

Wonton cups? Easiest thing ever (but not, alas, gluten-free. If you find GF wonton wrappers somewhere please let me know!).

Photo courtesy of Peninsula Cellars

Brush 2 wonton wrappers very (very, very) lightly with canola or peanut oil (any neutral oil will do). If you have a sprayer that actually sprays instead of dribbling, by all means use it – it’s easy to go overboard with the oil and then your cups will be chewy instead of crispy. Stack the wrappers, turning the top one a little so you get a nifty 8-pointed star, and press into a mini-muffin pan. You can press the corners down a little if you want a more flower-like shape, which means that you’ll only end up using every other cup in the muffin pan. Bake at 350 for 6-7 minutes or until they’re just a little golden brown; these can overcook really quickly so keep an eye on them. Put them on a rack to cool and store in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

I served this with Peninsula Cellars Manigold Vineyard Gewurztraminer, which more people would probably drink if they weren’t afraid of pronouncing it wrong. It turns out that Gewurztraminer is excellent with Asian food; it’s acidic enough to cut through the richness of the sesame oil and soy sauce, and it has a little spicy kick at the end that goes really well with the ginger. Gewurz tends to be very floral-smelling but that’s not to be confused with sweetness in the wine itself; I’ve been trying a lot of them lately and some are definitely sweeter than I prefer, but I’d definitely look for some drier Gewurz if you’re wondering what to serve with Asian food.