In Chinese, Wonton literally means “swallowing clouds”. This may have to do with its irregular shaped pasta skin. The filling is traditionally made of minced meat, diced shrimp and small bits of vegetable, typically onion although there are numerous variations in the filling and the proportion of meat/vegetable used also tends to vary depending on which part of the world you are in.

Wonton is similar to other filled pasta such as Italian ravioli, Jewish kreplach, Swabian maultaschen, Turkish manti, Korean mandu or Japanese gyoza. The deep fried variety of Wonton is more popular in America and Europe than in Asia. In Hong Kong, noodles in wonton soup is definitely the people’s choice in the local café.

One thing that distinguishes wonton from other filled pasta is its ultra thin lye-water pastry wrapper. The 4”x4” wrapper (shown at the back of this picture) adds the needed smoothness to the skin so that boiled wonton is easier swallowed than chewed. Many restaurants, however, substitutes the ultra thin wrapper with the larger and thicker spring roll wrapper which is less expensive and easier to use.