In a community classroom at Waimanalo Health Center last month, a group of women were bustling about, happily chattering and tasting bites of wonton they had just learned to make. Amid all the activity, Patricia Liang-Tong shared a few pieces of advice and some cheerful goodbyes as she cleared dishes, wiped tables and generally restored order to the room.
Liang-Tong, director of health promotion and disease prevention at Waimanalo Health Center, was in her element. Down to earth and quietly efficient, she was doing what she does best: educating patients about health and nutrition, not in a doctor’s office, but at a cooking demonstration.
"I love being in the field because it’s working in a community setting. You can build a rapport, a relationship. It’s more satisfying," said the registered dietitian. "I don’t think I’d fit into a clinical setting."
True to her style of serving the community, Liang-Tong had shared a family recipe, Hong Kong-style wonton soup — a favorite, in fact, that she grew up on and one that her father still makes for her sons, ages 11 and 15. It is a dish that inspires memories of her early life in Canton, of growing up in Kalihi on her father’s cooking — of family.
"This is my comfort food," she said.
Liang-Tong also makes the dish, though in modified form to incorporate healthful vegetables. What makes the Hong Kong style distinctive, she says, is the smaller size of the wrapper, and therefore daintier dumplings that can easily be eaten in one bite.
She fills the wrapper with a mix of ground pork, shiitake mushroom and green vegetables, the latter two ingredients chopped finely. This is not only because of the miniature size of the dumplings.
"My kids are picky. I chop the greens so finely, or I puree it and then mix it in," she said.
And true to the family tradition, Liang-Tong adds one small piece of shrimp to the filling before folding each wrapper, ensuring a bit of luxury in each morsel.
"The combination of protein, fat, greens and carbs — it’s a complete meal," she said.
The recipe will appeal to the principled foodie because nothing is wasted. Sure, in a pinch chicken broth provides a serviceable soup base, but Liang-Tong also adds in the seasoned water from soaking the dried shiitake, and a broth she makes by boiling shells after peeling the shrimp. With the addition of the umami flavors, she says there’s no need to add more than a pinch of salt.
Busy cooks will appreciate the dish for its flexibility. Though her family traditionally ate the wonton soup without any additions, she said any vegetable can be added to the soup or filling.
Liang-Tong, 42, is one of a team of busy professionals — nurses, doctors, psychologists, dietitians, dentists, obstetricians, optometrists — who last year at the center serviced 4,500 patients over the course of 27,000 visits. The center takes a holistic, patient-centered approach, addressing health and wellness comprehensively via medicine and health-promotion classes.
In line with her approach to promoting wellness, Liang-Tong runs the cooking demonstrations, a diabetes class and even gives tours at a nearby market to teach patients to read labels. She also oversees the center’s Women, Infants and Children program, a federal food and nutrition service.
The center has a garden tended by staff and patients that supplies some of the ingredients she uses for her demos. It was cultivated to illustrate to patients that they can grow fruits and vegetables for themselves rather than pay for pricey produce in supermarkets.
Liang-Tong practices what she preaches and tends a small herb garden at home. She also shops with freshness in mind during regular runs to the Waimanalo Co-op, owned by a group of farmers, where fresh produce and fish are accessible four times weekly for "decent prices."
While she admits that she doesn’t often put in kitchen duty (she lives with her in-laws in Kalihi, who have meals ready and waiting for her busy family), she is a wiz at packing nutrients into meals. To disguise whole-wheat pasta from picky eaters, for instance, she tosses the noodles with sauce before serving.
"Most folks can’t tell the difference," she said. "When I make pasta, I add a lot of vegetables to the sauce. I chop them up so fine my kids can’t pick them out."
But really, she says, raising healthful eaters is about exposure.
"As a parent, it’s about offering many things. They may not like everything, but it’s good for them to try," she said.
"My boys are into juicing. We fit everything in there — greens, not just fruit, and not ice cream or frozen yogurt. They don’t mind the greens because they make it themselves. When kids make something by themselves, they own it."
“What’s Your Favorite Dish?” is a monthly feature in which local food industry professionals share the dishes they prepare at home.
Efficiency’s a key ingredient in cooking
Patricia Liang-Tong says she inherited her parents’ cooking genes. They worked as restaurant cooks after immigrating to Hawaii from Canton when Liang-Tong was 7.
“They were good cooks,” she said, and they had their entire family participating in the kitchen for tasks such as folding wonton for a favorite soup.
Today, Liang-Tong’s in-laws usually do the household cooking, but she hasn’t lost her chops for cooking with efficiency.
“When my in-laws are on vacation, I start cooking at 6:30 and we’re eating at 7:30,” she said.
Here are a few of her timesaving techniques:
» “Set up your environment for convenience,” she stresses. For Liang-Tong, who prioritizes fresh produce, this means growing an herb garden in the unlikeliest of places: a small space right outside her second-floor window.
» Plan ahead: Thaw meats the night before so they’re ready to go when you are.
» Use an efficient cooking method. For Liang-Tong, that means steaming — usually a fish.
» The freezer is your friend: Prep vegetables ahead, then freeze; even chopped green onions do well when frozen, she says. Another trick: freeze kale in one big chunk, then crumble off pieces into the soup pot or pan. No need to take out the knife.
» For mothers of babies: Steam then puree fresh produce, spoon into ice cube trays for perfect storage and freeze. Thaw as needed.
HONG KONG-STYLE WONTON SOUP
Filling:
» 1/2 pound ground pork
» 1 egg
» 1 cup of finely chopped vegetables (cabbage, spinach or kale)
» 1/2 cup finely chopped shiitake, hydrated in 2 cups water, with water reserved
» 1 teaspoon sesame oil
» 1/2 teaspoon sugar
» 3/4 teaspoon salt
» 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
» 1 package egg-flour wonton wrappers (about 50), thawed (yellowish square wrappers, not whitish all-wheat kind or round dumpling wrappers)
» 1/2 pound shrimp, deveined, peeled and sliced into 3 pieces
Broth:
» 2 cubes chicken, pork, beef or seafood bouillon
» 4 cups water
» 1/2 cup shrimp shells
» About 2 cups shiitake water
» Chopped green onion, for garnish
To make filling, in large mixing bowl, thoroughly mix pork, egg and vegetables. Add sesame oil, sugar, salt and pepper. Mix well. Filling should be sticky and slightly wet.
Place 2 to 3 large plates near you, one for the filling and another for the wrapped wonton.
Use small bowl of water for sealing wraps.
Place a wrapper into the palm of your hand. Place a quarter-size spoonful of filling in the center of the wrapper. Top with piece of shrimp. (A 50-50 ratio of pork-vegetable filling and shrimp is good.)
Fold wonton: Form a rectangle by coating edges of wrapper with water and then folding in half, pinching out as much air as possible. For a “boat” fold, continue on by adding dab of water to the 2 tips along folded edge, then fold them together, overlapping one on top the other. The end result should look like a boat, with two tips cradling a puff of filling in the middle.
You can cook the wontons in the soup itself, but it’s best to cook them separately so any excess flour on the wrapper doesn’t get into the soup.
Bring 8 cups water to a boil. Add wontons and simmer uncovered, stirring gently once or twice to keep dumplings from sticking to bottom of pot, about 3 to 5 minutes, until they float to the top. If wontons float too quickly, it is because air was not removed during folding. To ensure thorough cooking, add another 3/4 cup tap water to pot and cook until wontons float again.
For broth, mix bouillon cubes into water. Add shrimp shells and shiitake water. Cook about 5 minutes or until shells turn a pinkish-orange hue. Remove shells.
To serve, place 10 wontons in each individual soup bowl. Pour in 1-1/2 cups broth, garnish with green onions and serve immediately. Serves 5.
Variation: Use all-shrimp filling or add water chestnuts.
Approximate nutritional information, per serving: 420 calories, 13 g fat, 4 g saturated fat, 115 mg cholesterol, greater than 1,500 mg sodium, 51 g carbohydrate, 2 g fiber, 1 g sugar, 24 g protein
Nutritional analysis by Joannie Dobbs, Ph.D., C.N.S., a nutritionist in the Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Science, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, University of Hawaii-Manoa.
