In the winter, I love to eat a hot bowl of soup. It’s comfort food at it’s finest, and can make a fast and healthy meal. I usually make tomato or chicken soup, but I have also added wonton soup to my favourite list since I read about it on the Banlieusardises blog.

The following recipe makes about 20 soups, with 6 wontons in each bowl. I know this is a big recipe, but this way I can freeze the extra and have enough for the whole winter. It takes me about an hour to fold all those wontons, which is not so bad if you consider how many soups you’ll get.

Ingredients

500g (about 1lb) of ground beef, cooked
500g (about 1lb) of ground veal or chicken, cooked
1 can (about 1 cup) of water chestnuts, finely chopped
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoon of ground ginger
2 teaspoon of miso paste

2 egg whites
2 packs (400g each) of wonton wrappers

Making the Wontons

Mix together the ground beef and veal (or chicken), the water chestnuts, the egg yolks, the ginger and the miso paste. Spoon one tablespoon of this mixture on each wonton wrapper :

Brush the outside border of the wonton wrapper with egg white and close the wrapper to make a triangle, pressing around the border so it closes properly :

Finally, brush the two tips of the triangle with egg white and bring them back to the center of the wonton :

When I start running of of space on my counter, I put the folded wontons on cookie sheets. Once a sheet is completed it goes into the freezer or the the refrigerator when I run out of freezer space. Of course, I make sure to keep about 12 of them to eat fresh.

Cooking the Soups

To prepare the wontons, put them in boiling water for about 5 minutes if they’re fresh, or 10 to 15 minutes if they are frozen. They will float to the top once they’re ready.

Drain the cooked wonton and serve each portion of six wontons in one cup of chicken broth.

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This soup made from frozen or fresh fava beans is a classic dish in the Lac-Saint-Jean region, but strangely enough the fava bean is not really used in the other parts on the province of Quebec. I have to get my frozen fava beans at a Lebanase grocery store!

The recipe varies depending on the family and the vegetables on hand. It’s also very filling and satisfying when the weather turns cold with all the protein.

Making a Fava Bean Soup

If you’re making the recipe from fresh fava beans, you must first shell them. Some recipes will ask you to remove the white skin over each individual bean, but DON’T do that for soup. The inside of the beans will turn all mushy so you need the skin to hold it all together.

After this, put the following in a pressure cooker (read my pressure cooker primer if you want to learn how to use it) :

• 1 1/2 cup of fresh or frozen fava beans
• 1/4 cup of dry barley grains
• 1 cup of diced turnip
• 2/3 cup of cut green beans
• 2/3 cup of diced carrots
• 2 chicken drumsticks
• 9 cups of water

Cook for 25 minutes in the pressure cooker (from the time the pressure gauge starts moving) or about an hour in an ordinary soup pot until the fava beans are soft and mushy and the barley is well-cooked.

Remove the chicken drumsticks from the broth and remove the meat from the bones. Cut the big meat pieces in smaller bits, put them back in the soup, mix well and serve.

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