Recipe: Crab Rangoon

When I lived in Butte, one of my favorite restaurants was Asia Garden.  Situated off in one of the lesser-used entrances to the mall, Asia Garden was one of a small handful of Chinese restaurants in town, and they had the red wall hangings and big round table with the lazy susan to prove it.  While I frequented the restaurant quite frequently with one of my former boyfriends, and later with friends and family, I never figured out the name of the proprietor.

I don't even quite remember my list of "usual" dishes I'd order there, although I vividly remember my now-ex-boyfriend always ordering the sweet-and-sour chicken.  Maybe I ordered sesame chicken.  Or cashew chicken.  I think they had a good rendition of Moo Goo Gai Pan.  The mu shu pork was decent too.  I remember getting wonton soup there a lot, but eventually crossed over to hot-and-sour territory.  But indelibly marked in my mind was the crab rangoon appetizer.  Little triangle-shaped pillows filled with cream cheese, imitation crab, a touch of ginger and the tiniest hint of chives.  Delicious.

I've made them a few times since, always using real crab.  And they are tasty.  I usually prefer a 2:1 ratio of crab to cream cheese, although you can feel free to fiddle with it.

4 oz. cream cheese
8 oz. crab meat (I usually use canned crab)
1 TB. minced ginger
1 tsp. chopped chives
wonton or egg roll wrappers

In a bowl, mix the cream cheese, crab meat, ginger and chives together thoroughly.  Dab a bit of filling in the center of the wrapper, and wrap the wrapper up.  Asia Garden makes these up in triangle forms, where one point of a square-shaped wrapper is brought over to it's opposite point.  But you can make them up in any variety of traditional wonton folds.  Deep fry for a couple minutes, in batches.

Alternatively you can spray a mini-muffin pan with an oil and place a wonton wrap in each cup.  Spoon a spoonful of filling in the center of the wonton wrap, and bake in an 350 degree oven for around 10 minutes.