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Chinese Appetizer Wrappers

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2016-03-26 22:55:47
Chinese For Dummies
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Egg rolls, spring rolls, and wontons consist of thin wrappers containing bits of deliciousness. You can find premade Chinese wrappers with the right shape and size to accommodate any Chinese appetizer you want to wrap. Make sure that you have the right wrapper for your appetizer.

  • Egg roll wrappers: These classic wrappers are made from wheat flour, eggs, and water. The dough gets rolled into thin, large, pliable squares with a golden yellow, wheaty color. As the name implies, they are designed to wrap the crunchy American-Chinese restaurant favorite called the egg roll. But you can also wrap egg roll wrappers around other fillings.

  • Spring roll wrappers: Unlike egg roll wrappers, spring roll wrappers contain no eggs — just wheat flour and water. Cooks pour the thin batter onto the wok surface and steam it to form a paper-thin pancake that’s thinner than egg roll wrappers and a lighter, grayer color (due to the lack of eggs in the batter). Spring rolls also fry up crispier and have a smoother, lighter-textured surface.

  • Wonton and potsticker wrappers: Like egg roll wrappers, wonton and potsticker wrappers contain eggs, as well as wheat flour and water. Thus, they have the same texture and tawny color as their egg-roll cousins. However, these wrappers are much smaller in size — usually around 3 1⁄2 inches in diameter. They also come in a greater variety of thicknesses and shapes.

About This Article

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About the book author:

Martin Yan, celebrated host of more than 1,500 cooking shows, highly respected food and restaurant consultant, and certified master chef, enjoys distinction as both teacher and author. His many talents are showcased in over two dozen best-selling cookbooks, including Martin Yan’s Feast: The Best of Yan Can Cook, Martin Yan’s Invitation to Chinese Cooking, and Chinese Cooking For Dummies. Yan is the founder of the Yan Can International Cooking School in the San Francisco Bay Area. Yan Can Cook has received national and international recognition, including a 1998 Daytime Emmy Award, a 1996 James Beard Award for Best TV Food Journalism, and a 1994 James Beard Award for Best TV Cooking Show.