Crab Rangoon Will Instantly Upgrade To Your Grilled Cheese Sandwich
The classic grilled cheese sandwich possesses all the qualities necessary for a really great snack. It's hot, it's gooey, it's crispy, and it's delectably salty. But it's the simplicity of the sandwich that has charmed eaters for decades and created generations of dedicated grilled cheese disciples. Two pieces of white bread and a slice of American cheese (and maybe a slathering of mayonnaise): That's all you need to whip up this iconic comfort food.
Yet the grilled cheese can be so much more. When you experiment with different cheeses, breads, spreads, and other culinary accents, you can turn your ordinary sandwich into something dynamic and complex. In actuality, many of your favorite meals and dishes, spanning all types of cuisines, can become inspiration for your next grilled cheese, from a Caprese salad to French onion soup to the classic Rueben. But for the bold and adventurous, there's one grilled cheese variation that needs to be on your mind. And that is the crab rangoon. Yes, the classic Chinese-American takeout staple makes for a truly unique and explosive grilled cheese sandwich.
Creating the ultimate comfort food mash-up
It doesn't take much culinary know-how to cook up a classic grilled cheese sandwich. Slap a slice of cheese between two pieces of bread and griddle it in a hot, buttered pan until the outside is golden brown. Well, a crab rangoon-inspired grilled cheese isn't much different. The initial steps are the same, albeit with some minor variations.
For those unfamiliar with the basic makeup of a crab rangoon, here's a quick primer. A wonton wrapper is stuffed with a mixture of cream cheese, scallions, and surimi — also known as imitation crab meat — and then fried until crispy. They're typically served with a side of bright red sweet and sour sauce. When making your own crab rangoon filling, you don't need to deviate too far from the steps listed above. Simply dice your imitation crab meat finely and add a heaping scoop of cream cheese along with some scallion slices. You can zhuzh the mixture up with a dash of soy sauce, sesame oil, or mirin. Spoon the filling onto one piece of bread and slather the other slice with sweet chili sauce. This adds some sweet relief to the otherwise rich filling. Throw the fully constructed sandwich into a hot skillet and cook until the outside is properly crisped.
The origin of the crab rangoon
Culinary histories are hard to track, and often it can be impossible to pinpoint the exact moment someone deep-fried a chicken, boiled a bagel, or coal-fired a discus of dough, sauce, and cheese. However, the crab rangoon appears to have a well-documented origin story: One that began at a Polynesian-themed tiki bar chain in Oakland, California, called Trader Vic's.
Yes, the appetizer synonymous with Chinese-American takeout was not created for or by a Chinese restaurant. The story goes that sometime in the 1940s, Victor Bergeron, the owner of Trader Vic's, was trying out new menu ideas for his tiki-inspired restaurant. One of his employees, a Chinese-American barback named Joe Young, worked with Bergeron to conceptualize and test some new menu items to appeal to Western palates. Young, being of Chinese descent, was familiar with wonton wrappers and, through good old fashion playfulness, began filling them with all sorts of ingredients, including cream cheese and crab. Bergeron named the dish after the city of Yangon in the country of Myanmar (formerly Burma). Three-quarters of a century later, the legacy of the crab rangoon continues to take on a delicious new life — now in the form of a grilled cheese sandwich.