Baked Sardine Rangoons

Dumplings stuffed with a cream cheese and sardine mixture, baked until crisp.

I came across the idea of baked rangoons from Tracy's Culinary Adventures blog.  Once I saw this recipe I was hooked, I had to try them.  I like crab but it can be expensive and difficult to obtain so I used something I already had in my pantry, sardines.  Not only are sardines easy to obtain and inexpensive they contain good omega 3 fatty acids.  I keep cream cheese in my freezer so the only thing I needed to make these delicious snacks was wonton wrappers.  I searched and searched in my local store and could not find any so I resorted to making them.  I found an easy recipe on KitchenSimplicity.com and set about making wonton wrappers.  While the ingredient list was very simple the process of rolling them out and stacking them was a bit more difficult.  If I can ever find pre-made wrappers I don't think I will make them by hand again.  It would probably work better if I had more space, but I have a small kitchen with very limited counter/tabletop space.  It was worth the effort but it was time consuming.

Ingredients:

Wonton wrappers
1 pack cream cheese, softened
1 single serving can sardines (filets)
salt and pepper to taste

Mix the sardines and cream cheese together until thoroughly combined (I used a food processor).  Place about 1 tablespoon of cream cheese mixture onto half of a wonton wrapper.  Fold the other half of the wrapper over the cheese and seal by pressing down.  I used a little egg brushed along the  edges to help create the seal.  Lay out in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil and bake at 400F until golden and crisp (about 12-15 minutes).  Flip half way through cooking for even browning.  Serve with dipping sauce of your choice.  I made about 12 rangoons and had plenty of cream cheese left over but if you have more wrappers it would make at least 24-30.

This was my first time making dumplings of any kind so they are not the prettiest, but they tasted very good.  If you want to make these fancier I'm sure you could add garlic, shallots, ginger and all kinds of flavors.  Enjoy.