Beef Brisket Wonton Soup

It has been an interesting week, the nation is shutting down due to the Coronavirus pandemic and it’s mid-March yet snowing in Portland. What's happening 2020? Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day and I was planning on prepping the typical corned beef with colcannon and Irish soda bread for the week and decided, no, that does not seem appetizing to me at all. Wonton soup sounded perfect—it’s my comfort food for when I am sick or the weather is chilly out. Let’s use that brisket and make my version of Kenny Noodle House’s brisket wonton soup.

I get my meat from a butcher, my favorite in the area is The Original Steer Market. I walked in and there was a line of ten people waiting to be helped—I have never seen it that busy, there was definitely no social distancing. People were stocking up and spending hundreds of dollars on meat, crazy! I just needed a bag of bone marrow, a pound of pork, and two pounds of brisket (flat, if they ask). Grabbed a few more ingredients from the Asian grocery store and I was set. Best time to shop at an Asian store, plus, produce is always cheaper.

Ingredients

Broth

3 lbs beef bones (knuckle, marrow, oxtail)

2 yellow onions, halved

1/4 cup whole black peppercorn

1 tsp salt

4 Tbsp fish sauce

1-2 tsp MSG (optional)

6 baby bok choys, quartered

Filling

1 lb ground pork

1/2 lb ground shrimp

1 Tbsp salt

1.5 Tbsp sugar

1.5 tsp ground white pepper

1 Tbsp Shaoxing Wine

3 scallions, sliced

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 (16 oz) package of wonton wrappers

Braised Brisket

2 lbs beef brisket

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup hoisin sauce

1/3 cup brown sugar

1-inch piece of ginger, grated

1 tsp salt

Lately, the Instant Pot has been my best friend in the kitchen—especially for stocks, soups, and stews. It efficiently cuts down the cook time that it would take to do it on the stove then I finish the stock on the stove to get it the same cooked off taste. First thing to do is to throw in the beef bones, yellow onion, whole black peppercorns, and salt into your Instant Pot and manually set it for 120 minutes at high pressure.

While the stock is cooking away, I marinade the brisket with a mixture of soy sauce, hoisin sauce, brown sugar, ginger, and salt then set it aside to marinate. In the two hours that it takes for the stock to finish, I take that time to make the filling and assemble the wontons. I prefer a mixture of pork and shrimp for the filling but would taste good if you wanted to use all pork, all shrimp, or even ground chicken/turkey. Shrimp doesn’t typically come in a grounded form, use a food processor and pulse until you get a desirable consistency. Mix all the filling ingredients together: the ground meat, salt, sugar, white pepper, Shaoxing wine, scallions, and garlic.

I like Mr. Kon’s Wonton Wrappers, it comes in a 16-oz package for around $1.99. One of these days, when I am feeling ambitious, I may attempt to make my own wrappers. For now, I am content with a locally sourced product. Should produce around 60 wontons . There are many ways to fold a wonton, I used the triangle ingot shape so let your freak flag fly. I might start folding my wontons into vagina shape and call it “Vagtons” (we all need a gimmick, right??).

Lesson learned, do not quick release the pressure on the Instant Pot immediately. It will spew liquid everywhere. Natural release for at least 15-20 minutes then release the rest of the pressure. I strain the broth into a separate stock pot and toss away all the impurities. Add one liter of the beef stock back into the Instant Pot along with the marinated beef brisket. Set the Instant Pot on manually for 35 minutes to braise the brisket. Now it’s time to season the broth with fish sauce and MSG if using. Honestly, soup just doesn’t taste as good or the same to me without it. Add the wontons into the soup and allow it to simmer until cooked through. Add the bok choy for another minute or two. Just like that, the soup is done. Garnish the soup with the brisket and green onion then serve.