Thursday, March 11, 2010

Egg rolls

These are a delicious adventure - especially if you are deep frying them in a pan.  It can be tricky to get and keep the oil at the right temperature, but it is worth it.

Ingredients:
  • 6 cups cabbage, shredded - I shredded the cabbage but both Kevin and I agreed that the eggr olls were missing that crunch that we love so we are going to dice it into fine strips next time
  • 1 carrot, shredded - see cabbage
  • 1/2 cup fresh bean sprouts
  • 2 tablespoons chopped onion (optional)
  • 1 (4 ounce) can shrimp - I used 4 oz ground chicken, really you can use any meat you want or leave it out all together
  • 2 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
  • black pepper to taste
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • cornstarch
  • 20 egg roll wrappers
  • vegetable oil for frying - I used peanut oil because it can go to a higher temperature before burning.  I used an entire medium sized bottle of oil.
  1. In a large bowl, mix together cabbage, carrots, sprouts, and onion. Stir in chicken, soy sauce, garlic powder, and black pepper.You may want to add some more spices and these were a little bland.
  2. Pour beaten egg into a skillet placed over medium heat; cook flat and thin, flipping once, until done. Remove from skillet, cool, and chop finely. Stir egg into cabbage mixture. Sprinkle top with cornstarch, mix, and allow to sit 10 minutes.
  3. Mix 1 tablespoon cornstarch with 2 tablespoons cold water. Set aside.
  4. Place 2 or 3 tablespoons of the cabbage mixture into the center of an egg roll skin. Dip a spoon into the water and cornstarch mixture, and moisten all corners but the bottom corner. Fold the egg roll skin from the bottom over the mixture, making a tight tube of the shrimp mixture. Fold corners in from the sides, and press to stick against folded roll. Then roll the rest of the way. Repeat with remaining egg roll wrappers. This will take a little practice but is easy to get down.  Remember the fuller you fill them the longer they will take to get hot in the center.
  5. Pour vegetable oil into a deep frying pan to a depth of 3 or 4 inches, and heat oil to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Carefully place egg rolls into hot oil, and fry until golden brown. Remove to paper towels.Only put in 2 or 3 at a time or else the oil temp will drop too low.
  6. Dip in your favorite duck sauce and enjoy.

There are reviews on the website that recommended baking them; however, we didn't try this. Christina said she tried it and they just weren't as good.  We made all 20 or so and the ones we didn't eat I froze.  I will let you know how they turn out reheated in the toaster oven when I eat them.  UPDATE:  After frying them we let them cool and froze them.  They reheat wonderfully.  We reheated them straight from the freezer at 425 degrees for 20 minutes and they were delicious.

UPDATE #2:  We made these again and chopped the cabbage and carrots instead of grating them and it made them much better; although they were slightly harder to roll.  Also I would recommend still grating the carrots because they frequently punctured our rolls since they were so firm.  Overall the chopping of the cabbage brought back the delicious crunch I think of when you eat egg rolls.

1 comment:

  1. I love these! Did you fry them and then freeze them? Definitely let me know how they turn out when you reheat.

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