Wonton Cheese Bites
Cream cheese powder, dried scallion, and wonton wrappers baked at the car-camping fire ring or in a dutch oven.
- calories
- 260
- weight
- 2.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 104
- protein
- 7 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 20 min
- cook
- 12 min
- total time
- 32 min
- water
- 60 ml cold
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Snack
- Dutch oven
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- Real dishes
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Wonton wrappers | 24 squares | they freeze well; keep them cold and sealed until camp |
|---|---|---|
| Cream cheese powder | 3/4 cup | stands in for 8 oz of the block, no cooler space needed |
| Water | 1/4 cup | cold, added a spoonful at a time |
| Dried chives or freeze-dried green onion | 2 tbsp | replaces 2 fresh scallions |
| Garlic powder | 1/4 tsp | |
| Salt | a pinch | |
| Powdered egg | 1 tbsp | mixed with 2 tbsp water for the glue |
| Cooking oil | 1 tbsp | for brushing the tops |
Method
- Stir the cream cheese powder, chives, garlic powder, and salt together, then add cold water a spoonful at a time until it is a thick paste. Let it sit five minutes so the chives rehydrate.
- Whisk the powdered egg with 2 tbsp water in a cup.
- Put a teaspoon of filling in the middle of a wrapper. Wet the four edges with the egg wash, pull the corners up to meet, and pinch the seams shut so nothing leaks.
- Set them in a lightly oiled dutch oven, not touching. Brush the tops with oil.
- Lid on. Bake with roughly 8 coals under and 16 on top, about 12 minutes, until the tops go brown. Peek at 7 minutes.
- Eat them hot. Sweet and sour or chili sauce packets if you carried them.
Rangoon is a cooler problem, not a cooking problem. A block of cream cheese is heavy, spoils, and turns to soup at 80 degrees, so the filling here is cream cheese powder rehydrated at camp with a quarter cup of water. It comes out stiffer than the block, which is what you want: loose filling blows the seams open in the oven.
The wrappers are the one thing that still needs cold, and they are why this is a car-camping recipe. They keep about a week refrigerated and longer frozen, so pack them frozen and use them the first two days. Dried chives and garlic powder do the aromatics; powdered egg does the sealing. Nothing else in the bag cares about temperature.
Packing
Premix the filling powders and seasoning into one bag at home. Wrappers travel frozen in the cooler, flat between two rigid lids so the stack does not crack.
Variations
- Skip the dutch oven and pan-fry them in a shallow film of oil over a stove; same time, flip once.
- A spoonful of dried shrimp or a crumbled foil-packet crab adds the filling most takeout versions actually have.
https://domesticsuperhero.com/baked-cream-cheese-rangoon