Wasabi Beef and Sweet Potato Open Parcels

We had a cookout at our monthly book club meeting yesterday. I paired up with Pauline and our secret ingredients (assigned by P, who was also the host) were “beef” and “dumpling”. Dumpling? She clarified later that she meant wonton skins. So we decided to make small parcels and put mini meatballs and chunks of roasted sweet potato in them, topped with wasabi mayonnaise, torn Thai basil, and shichimi togarashi (Japanese red pepper seasoning).

And they turned out pretty good I would recommend them as a nice hor d’oeuvre dish for a party. Five or six of them would be enough as a light meal too.

Grilled eggplant.

Wild rice risotto.

The Book Club girls.

Gin and Ci’en made grilled eggplant with mint and garlic, and Peishan, Moomin and Pauline made wild rice risotto. All were exceptionally yummy. We cooked, ate, gossiped, watched Sex and the City, drank wine, talked about the book, bitched about exes, from the late afternoon till midnight. All in all, a fantastic Sunday

Wasabi Beef and Sweet Potato Open Parcels
(makes 24 parcels)

2 packets of circular wonton skins (altogether 24 sheets)
500 grams minced beef
1 small red onion, diced finely
1/2 lemon
soya sauce
1 egg, beaten
cornflour
1 sweet potato, skinned, cut into small 1/2-inch square chunks
2 tbsp wasabi paste
6 tbsp Japanese mayonnaise
Thai basil
Shichimi togarashi (Japanese red pepper seasoning)

1. Start by making the parcels while the oven is preheating at 200 deg celsius. Dab water at four points at the edges of the wonton skin. At each point, pinch the skin then fold the overlap to one side (dab with water and press it so that it will stick). It should result in a little square open-top parcel.

2. Spray or very lightly brush the parcels with olive oil. Place them on a greased tinfoil sheet and bake them for about 5 minutes till they’re nice and crisp.

3. While they cool, start on the sweet potato. Fry the sweet potato chunks in oil for about 10 minutes till they’re slightly golden brown on the outside. Then, stick them in the oven. They should sit there for about 30 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, start on the meatballs. Mash the beef with the onion and season with about 1 tbsp soya sauce. Squeeze the lemon juice, add the egg and mix it all up together. Add a fair amount of cornflour – about 2 heaped tbsp – and mix again.

5. Roll teaspoonfuls of the mince mixture into meatballs with about 1-inch diameter. Place them on a greased tinfoil sheet and stick them in the oven next to the sweet potato. Bake for about 15 minutes or until the tops look roasted.

6. While they’re cooking, chop up the Thai basil. Then mix the wasabi paste and mayonnaise together and scrape it into a small Ziploc bag. Cut off a tiny bit of one corner, and voila, a pastry bag.

7. The meatballs and sweet potato should finish cooking at the same time. Take them out, pat them with paper towels to soak up excess oil. Place one meatball or sweet potato chunk in each parcel. Drizzle wasabi mayo over them, and dress with chopped basil and a sprinkling of shichimi togarashi. Enjoy