American-Chinese food – Cream cheese wantons

August 31st, 2020

The dish I’ll describe is quite simple: a mixture of cream cheese and sugar stuffed inside a wonton wrapper and deep-fried. Most recipes I found online describe a savory type of Crab Rangoon that actually contains crab or imitation crab; this is different from the side dish we enjoyed in Illinois which for whatever reason retained this name but lacked any crab. I have heard that other parts of the US refer to this crab-less food as a cream cheese wonton, which seems to make a lot more sense to me.

What is cream cheese?

Cream cheese ranks among my favorite things to include with almost any food, whether that be a bagel, a cake, or even on a pizza; sadly, no traditional Chinese food I’ve ever encountered uses it. After exploring both cheesecake and ricotta cheese in previous months, I was curious about cheeses that are “blended” to give them a smoother texture. I found that many home recipes for cream cheese call for exactly that: blending the curdled cheese in a food processor until it is smooth and spreadable. This suggests to me that cream cheese is also a granular type of cheese material, but with much finer grains than something like ricotta.

However, I did not make my own cream cheese for this recipe. I used a classic, Philadelphia cream cheese, and I noticed some interesting discrepancies between how it seems that this store-bought cheese is made versus a homemade cheese. When discussing ricotta cheese last month, I mentioned two different strategies for triggering the water phase of the milk to solidify and form cheese (i.e. curdle), acid-based and enzyme-based. These two strategies and how they can combine with different relative contributions determines the final texture and moisture content of cheese; acid-based cheeses have a fragile network and enzyme-based ones are strong and rubbery. In the production of ricotta cheese, it is generally the case that an acid like vinegar or lemon juice is added to milk or cream bring the pH to an appropriate value for the gel network to form; this was also the strategy I saw used for many homemade cream cheese recipes. Alternatively, other recipes added lactic acid bacteria which converted the milk sugar to lactic acid, lowering the pH that way, and then adding in some of the enzyme, rennet, to complete the solidification.

Interestingly, the breakthrough innovation for industrial production of what came to be Philadelphia cream cheese, seems (according to Wikipedia) to be related to using acid-producing bacteria to raise the pH, but then not using rennet to complete the process. Unlike adding a fixed amount of acid, if an acid-producing bacterium is left unchecked the pH of the milk will continue to decrease, eventually destroying the fragile gel network. The Wikipedia article on the history of cream cheese indicates that by precisely heating the mixture just as this network forms, the bacteria can be killed and thus cease production of additional acid. This produces a cheese with a high amount of water content (in the US, cream cheese is defined as having at least 33% fat content and no more than 55% moisture content) that is weakly gelled, as opposed to a tougher gel formed using rennet. To make up for this, Philadelphia cream cheese adds carob bean gum that viscosifies the water phase and stabilizes the cheese. I couldn’t find any more information on the manufacturing process after this, but presumably, like the homemade recipes, the cheese is exposed to high shear to break the structure down into granular gel domains, giving it a smooth texture.

Making the cream cheese wontons

As I mentioned, the recipe I followed for this side dish differs from the majority of those I found online. Rather than adding any sort of crab meat or vegetables to the cream cheese mix, the side dish that my wife and I knew and loved seemed to our palates to only be cream cheese and sugar.

Using a spoon, I pressed about 5 Tbsp of powdered sugar into 125 grams of Philadelphia cream cheese. The mixture was quite stiff, I estimate that it had a yield stress of several hundred pascals, similar to peanut butter. Taking a small amount of the cream cheese mix I deposited it on the wonton wrapper. Blending one egg to use as “glue”, I used my fingers to apply it to the edges of the wrapper. I then folded the wrapper in half before pushing the four side mid-points together to form a four-armed dumpling. The wrappers I used here were quite thin and in order to have them hold their shape I needed to “double wrap” them. To prevent the cream cheese from boiling out during frying, it’s important to make sure the cream cheese is sealed inside well and so I pinched the dumpling arms together and added more egg to the top center point.

For frying, I heated enough oil to cover the wontons to about 150 °C and lightly deposited three wontons at a time for 30 seconds to a minute before pulling them out with a slotted spoon. Though I think overall they turned out well and were quite tasty, I wasn’t able to completely recreate what we remember from the US. I think the most likely difference is due to the wonton wrapper used and perhaps the double wrapping I needed to do. In the US, I recall a wrapper that was much lighter and airier. Perhaps a different wrapper will turn out better, or I can try frying slightly differently. For the filling, the warm sweet cream cheese was quite good but a bit too stiff. I think if I were to attempt this food again I would try to make the mixture a bit creamier, perhaps by mixing in a similar material that has a higher fat content than cream cheese like mascarpone or sour cream.