This election is almost over and it is way too stressful. But crab rangoon are my childhood comfort food, so I’ve been eating my feels. Here is my recipe.

Filling

This makes a lot of crab rangoon. Seriously. But it is freezable (notes on that below). Do not do what I seem to be doing and eating all of them in a week. Seriously. Bad idea. Almost as bad as eating a whole cheesecake by yourself.

• [Permalink]

  ¾ pounds cream cheese, room temperature

• [Permalink]

  ½ bunch scallions

• [Permalink]

  2 cloves of garlic (usually I am pro-garlic, but too much gets overpowering fast)

• [Permalink]

  ¾ pound crab (or imitation crab)

• [Permalink]

  generous dash of salt

• [Permalink]

  small handful of sugar

• [Permalink]

  Finely dice scallions, garlic, and crab. Mix, add salt and sugar.

• [Permalink]

  Mix in cream cheese. A stand mixer at low speed helps a lot. But I do this by hand to work off excess nervious election energy.

Notes on a vegan filling

I have not tried this yet, but for a vegan filling the important part is keeping a simliar ratio of vegan cream cheese and “meat”. I’ve seen other recipes suggest canned red peppers, and hearts of palm. I would also suggest broccoli florettes (diced), oyster mushrooms, and minced zucchini. Okay, this is starting to sound even tastier than regular crab rangoon. Add a generous dash of your favorite umami-rich flavor sauce.

Skins

I use store-bought wrappers out of laziness. But you can make your own—which may actually be a good idea if you find yourself needing to work off more of that election frustration:

• 3 cups flour
• ¾ cup cold water
• flour for dusting

Knead into smooth dough, feel free to punch the dough if you need to. The dough is there help comfort you. But let it rest for 10 minutes before rollingit into long and thin roll, cut into 50 pieces, flatten its stupid orange face, dust generously with flour.

Putting it together

There are two ways to fold a crab rangoon. Into triangles, or up with four ears. I like the latter. It’s prettier and is helpful if you have an emergency and need to equitably divide the final few rangoons.

Food democracy. It’s a thing. Look it up. (Actually it’s a completely different but still pretty awesome thing.)

Place some filling in the center and fold the center of each side in (it’ll take some experimenting, but you can figure out how much filling is needed pretty quickly). Seal off the parts of the dough around the filling but leave the ears open.

Frying

I like using neutral oils with high smoke points, I prefer canola oil. Heat the oil slowly, if you’re not using a fryer, have enough oil in the pot you’re using so the rangoon can be fully submerged without touching the bottom, as they heat up they’ll float just below the surface. Remove when golden brown.

Note on freezing

This makes a really big batch of crab rangoon. I do not suggest eating them all within the same week. No. Seriously, that much fried food is really bad for your skin. Yes, even if election night is approaching and you are absolutely terrified of what is happening.

Par-fry your crab rangoon before freezing, that means fry them until they’re almost but not-quite done. Otherwise the dough dries out and will not fry properly after defrosting. Normally I freeze and bag my dumplings raw. You can not do this with crab rangoon. I learned this the hard way. It makes me sad. But if you fry first, you may be able to reheat them in yer toaster oven instead of refrying them. A victory worthy an election party!

Sekret dipping sauce

(This sauce recipe is proprietary to Mandarine House in Caramel, Indiana, and another restaurant in Chinatown Seattle, it will be deleted after an election winner is declared. So save it while you can.)

¼ can of sliced peaches, drained.

¼ can of pineapple, drained.

2 maraschino cherries

splash of grenadine

Blend together with a blender, not a food processor. Chill.