Meatballs and Wontons

It’s technically a single meatball and a single wonton, but the plural forms of both just sound better.

I ran out of cold cuts yesterday so I had to improvise for lunch again. My go-to sandwich filling when I’m out of cold cuts is leftovers and why mess with a good thing? We have lots of leftovers at the moment as we went home to Montreal for Chinese New Year and brought back tons of home-cooked food from our parents. These foodstuffs include things such as curry noodles, chicken with leeks and taro, and homemade cha shao (or char siu, for the Cantos out there), which is BBQ pork. So many things to pick from! We typically freeze food at home so it can survive the 5 hour train ride to Toronto and take out a few things at a time in the fridge while leaving the rest frozen so it can last for a long time.

In the end, I chose to use a meatball and a fried wonton, both courtesy of my parents. The meatballs are homemade, and contain a mixture of ground pork, turnip, mushrooms, ginger and other spices, a variety of sauces, and the most important ingredient (besides the meat itself): rock sugar. Rock sugar gives the meatballs a little sweetness and caramelizes the outside to form a delicious crust. The wontons have a similar meat mixture inside and are deep fried to crispy perfection. Granted, they’re not really crispy anymore as it’s been a week and they’ve been refrigerated, but they’re still good. I figured sandwiches also need some sort of spread so I decided on hummus (there was a two-for-one sale at Sobey’s again). In retrospect, the sandwich probably didn’t really need the hummus and the flavours were a bit of a mismatch in terms of cultural propriety, but it felt wrong not to put something. Not that the sandwich was bad or anything, but the hummus just wasn’t super necessary. Maybe I’ll use mayo next time.

If you ever plan to make this sandwich, make sure to read the recipe below and follow it exactly. Each step is vital if you want to get the complete experience.

Recipe for Meatball and Wonton Sandwich:

• Prep time: 5 minutes
• Cook time: Unknown
• Wait time: 41 hours
• Difficulty: Easy
• Servings: 1

Ingredients:

• 2 Slices of bread
• 2 tbsp Hummus
• 1 Meatball
• 1 Fried wonton

Instructions:

Have your parents make meatballs and fried wontons for you in Montreal (this step is probably the most important one). Pack them into an empty tofu box and freeze overnight (about 12 hours). Place the tofu box(es) in a freezer bag and ensure it’s sealed tightly in case of leakage. Take the train to Toronto (about 5 hours). Thaw the tofu box(es) in the fridge for a day.

Spread the hummus on two pieces of bread. Use a fork because it’s all you have that’s convenient and you don’t want to wash another utensil. Make sure that the hummus is lumpy at the edges because you’re too lazy to smooth it out. Cut up a meatball into unevenly-sized chunks using the fork because, again, you don’t want to use up another utensil (save water!). Place the meatball chunks such that you cover most of the bread, but leave an empty spot in one corner. Plop the wonton in this corner. Despair because it’s big and your second piece of bread won’t lie flat. Decide you don’t care. Cover with the second piece of bread.