It’s almost Chinese/Lunar New Year, and to celebrate The Italian Club Hong Kong challenged me to make a CNY recipe with their ingredients. At first, I was thrown for how to create an Italian-Chinese dish, but there are actually so many overlaps between all the various kinds of (pasta) noodles and dumplings! So I turned one of my favorite pasta dishes into these lucky sausage, burrata and kale wontons that swaps the orecchiette typical of the Italian dish for chewy wonton wrappers to create perfect little packages of goodness.
Wontons are said to bring you wealth and treasure if you eat them during Chinese New Year. This is because their shape resembles Chinese Ingots, which were made of gold and silver and used as currency in ancient China. It’s one of several dishes (including dumplings and noodles) that are said to be lucky and auspicious for CNY, so definitely make sure to fill up on these dishes when the celebrations start on February 12!
I love ordering the Italian cheeses from the Italian Club, which is a restaurant in Hong Kong’s SoHo neighborhood that also sells their quality ingredients with direct delivery to your home. I’m obsessed with their creamy burrata imported from the Puglia region of Italy, so I wanted to use that as the “glue” to bind together my wonton filling that also uses their garlicky Luganega sausage, plus kale from the local market, which all gets combined together in my new favorite mixing bowl from Food52.
I also topped the wontons with extra virgin olive oil and grated Pecorino Romano, which is a sheep’s milk cheese that’s like the slightly saltier and sharper cousin of Parmigiano. I got the wonton wrappers from my favorite noodle shop on Gage Street here in Hong Kong, but you can use frozen wonton wrappers for this.
This recipe is as simple as cooking your ingredients then folding them into the wontons. While you typically make wontons with raw pork, you want to first brown the sausage, as it adds a big depth of flavor not only to the sausage but to the kale. Kale gets a bad rep for being bitter, but not here! When you sauté it with garlic in the same pan as the sausage, you can deglaze the pan with water so that the kale cooks in a liquid flavored with all those browned bits of sausage that stick to the pan. It’s so delicious even on its own! I love using my Le Creuset braiser for this task.
To fold the wontons, you need a small bowl of water and a wet kitchen towel, which you’ll use to cover the wonton wrappers and finished wontons so they don’t dry out while you work on folding the rest. There are many ways to fold the wontons, but the technique I’ve included in the recipe below most closely resembles Chinese ingots for wealth in the new year.
My favorite part about wontons and dumplings is that you have a chewy wrapper to encase your ingredients for perfect bites every time. One of my biggest issues with pasta cooked with sausage and kale (or broccoli rabe as is also traditional) is that the ingredients don’t stick to the pasta. It’s harder to eat since you have to dig around to stab all the ingredients with your fork or scoop things up so you have the right ratio of pasta, sausage and greens.
By making these sausage, burrata and kale wontons, you have a delicious package that you can pop right into your mouth, and the more you eat the wealthier you should be so it’s a win-win! Give these a try and tag me so I can see how you like it (though the wealth is not guaranteed so don’t come at me if you don’t become rich 😂).
Sausage Burrata and Kale Wontons
Ingredients
- 7 oz. Italian sausage, removed from the casing
- 1 tbsp. olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 cups kale, destemmed and roughly chopped
- 2-4 tbsp. water
- 1 whole burrata
- Few cracks of fresh ground pepper
- 18-22 wonton wrappers
- 1/3 cup or more extra virgin olive oil
- 4 oz. or more grated Pecorino Romano
- Crushed red pepper flakes to taste
Instructions
- Cook sausage in a skillet over medium-high heat, using a wooden spoon to break the sausage up and cooking until it starts to turn golden brown, about 7-9 minutes. Set aside in a mixing bowl.
- Lower the heat to medium-low and add the olive oil and garlic, sautéing until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the kale and 2 tbsp of water and increase the heat to medium, using a wooden spoon to scrape up any browned sausage bits that have stuck to the pan and adding more water as needed to deglaze the pan. Wilt the kale in the sausage water and simmer until most of the liquid has evaporated, about 5 minutes. Transfer the kale to a cutting board and chop finely, then add to the mixing bowl.
- Cut into the burrata and remove the filling and add to the mixing bowl, then finely chop the exterior and add to the mixing bowl.
- Add the fresh ground pepper and crushed red pepper flakes as desired, then mix until the filling is well-combined.
- Set a pot of water to boil while you prepare your wontons.
- To fold the wontons, hold a wonton wrapper in the palm of your hand and use your finger to wet the edges of the wrapper. Add about a tablespoon of filling to the center and fold the wrapper in half around the filling, making sure to squeeze out as much air from the filling so the wontons don’t explode during cooking. Press to seal the edges, then use your finger to wet the two bottom corners that are on the fold, then bring those corners together and press to seal to form your wonton.
- Once all your wontons are folded, cook them in pot of boiling water until they float then strain and transfer to serving bowls.
- Top with a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil and grated Pecorino Romano, and crushed red pepper flakes to taste and enjoy!
Notes
If you make this recipe, I’d love to see the final product. Tag your photos and stories on Instagram with @IndulgentEats and #IndulgentRecipes so I can see them!
