Fried Kabocha Squash and Sage Wontons

So...I bit a bit more than I could chew yesterday and spent hours and hours on my feet in the kitchen.  I found a couple recipes in a Food and Wine magazine at my parents' house this past weekend and was inspired to do a little fancy cooking.

These wontons took a while to fold and steam then fry, but they were totally tasty and I made a dozen extra and froze them for another time!

Here's how I did it:

Ingredients:

• 4 cloves of garlic
• 3 sage leaves
• 1/2 of a kabocha squash seeded, peeled, and cut into medium chunks
• olive oil
• sea salt
• 1 shallot minced
• 1/2 cup of roasted walnuts (chop finely half and coarsely the other half)
• 24 wonton wrappers

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a piece of foil roast the garlic cloves with 2 sage leaves and a bit of olive oil.
3. Cook for 30 minutes until the garlic.
4. Steam the squash for 15-20 minutes until very soft.
5. Once cooked place the squash in a bowl with the garlic and sage and the finely chopped walnuts and mash with a potato masher or a fork.
6. Mince the last sage leaf and saute it with the shallot in a tablespoon of olive oil.
7. Add the shallot and sage to the squash along with a couple pinches of sea salt to taste and mix until incorporated.
8. Then take out a baking sheet to place the wontons on once they'r folded.
9. Then take out the wontons four at a time.
10. On each, place a spoonful of squash mixture.
11. Wet each edge of one of the wontons.
12. Fold the wonton in half pressing down a bit on the edges to secure.
13. Give each of the corners a dab of water and fold the m each up to meet in the middle pressing down lightly to s
14. cure them there.
15. Repeat with the rest of the wontons, place them on the sheet tray, and cover them with plastic wrap.
16. (At this point you can freeze as many as you want on a sheet tray in the freezer.  Once they are frozen you can place them in a baggie).
17. Once all the wontons are wrapped, steam them in a covered pan (with a steamer basket of course) for 5 minutes.  (Be careful with this step to make sure that they are not touching.  As they steam they get a little sticky and can fuse together as a couple of mine did.)
18. (At this point you can place them in the refrigerator and they can stay for a couple days for frying later.)
19. In a large frying pan heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil.
20. Fry each of the wontons for about 2 minutes on each side until crispy.
21. Serve garnished with the coarsely chopped walnuts and your guests will surely be impressed (Avi and Richie sure were!)

I served these with some stewed lentils with some portobellos and green chard.