Asparagus Cream Cheese Wanton Fries

Recipe #2 of 3 from Friday night's Asian inspired appetizer dinner.  If you haven't tried them yet, the Vegetable Spring Rolls are fantastic.

But on to the fries.  The picture made these little suckers look irresistible.  And as it is asparagus season still it seemed like a good recipe to try.

INGREDIENTS

Asparagus Spears
Wanton wrappers (apparently they come in different sizes... we'll get to that in a minute)
Cream cheese, softened
garlic powder, to taste
oil, for frying 
Sweet Chili Sauce, for dipping

DIRECTIONS

Apparently there are different sizes of wanton wrappers.  I only know of the little ones, that are approximately 2" squares.  If you find larger wrappers you can make larger fries, so it's up to what your local store has in stock.

Start by cooking the asparagus.  You can do this either by steaming it until tender or by boiling it for approximately 30 seconds and then rinsing with cold water to stop the cooking process.  

Mix the cream cheese and garlic powder together.  As to the amount, you're going to use about 1 TBS for a full length spear.  So soften the amount you want accordingly.

Heat 3 or 4 TBS of oil in a pan and heat over medium-high heat.

While the oil is warming start assembling the fries.  Lay out the wanton wrappers.  You only want the wrapper to go around 2-3 times otherwise it will be soggy.  So for the 2" wrappers I cut them each in half.  I also cut each piece of asparagus in half to fit into my steamer, so the end result was a bunch of 2" spears.  Perfect.

Smear cream cheese down the side of a wrapper.  Lay asparagus on top.  Roll.

Once you have several pieces add them carefully to the oil.  Once one side is brown rotate to cook the other side.  Place cooked fries on paper towels to drain excess oil.

Serve with sweet chili sauce. 

VERDICT

I'm not sure if it was a result of overcooking or undercooking the asparagus, but they did not crunch when you bit into the fries.  They were stringy and slipped out.  We ended up folding each fry in half to dip into the sauce and eat all at once.

I thought they were just fine.  Not anything exceptional, but definitely an interesting idea.  My husband loved them.  The kids even ate them.  So we'll probably attempt this again, maybe I'll even find bigger wanton paper so I can do a whole spear at once.