#GoJunkFood Presents Egg Rolls

With all apologies to the #GoJunkFood crowd, this post is incredibly late (like months late), but as a few sharp people have noticed, I haven’t exactly been posting a lot.  Which is no good.

Most importantly, though, I must say sorry to the egg rolls.  You should have your story told to the world so you can be eaten.  You deserve it.

And if I don’t say something about you, egg rolls, who will?

Egg Rolls

Okay, that’s just silly.  Just about everyone who digs Chinese food (and many who don’t) love egg rolls and why not?  They’re fried.  Fried is awesome.  And they have pork inside.  Pork is awesome.

And they’re really easy to make at home.  No foolin’.  It really only takes three steps to put them together:

1. Make the filling.

2. Roll the roll.

3. Fry

Then it’s meal time.  Ready to give it a try?

How to Make Egg Rolls

The following recipe is pretty basic and kind of “no frills.”  You can get as wild and complex as you want with your egg rolls, but if you’ve never made them before, this is a good place to start.

You will need:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 pound ground pork
• 1 inch ginger, minced or 1 tablespoon ginger powder
• (optional) 4 shitake mushrooms, sliced
• 1/2 head cabbage, shredded (about 1 1/2-2 cups)
• 2 cloves garlic or 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 12-16 egg roll wraps
• 1 Egg
• Oil for frying

In a wok (or skillet) over high heat, add the oil.  When it’s hot, add the ground pork and ginger (in that order so that the ginger doesn’t burn.)  Cook the pork until it has lost most of its pink color and it has taken on a whitish, almost gray color (yeah, that doesn’t sound appetizing, but whatev…)

If you are using mushrooms, add them about 2 minutes after you added the pork.  Cook them until they are deep brown and have surrended their liquid.  By that time, the pork should be cooked all the way through.

Add the cabbage, garlic, and soy sauce.  Continue cooking until the cabbage has started to wilt, which should only take 1-2 minutes at most.

Set the mixture aside to cool.

Lay out the egg roll wraps.  Then mix the egg with a tablespoon of water to form an egg wash.  Paint all four sides of the egg roll wrap wih egg wash and put about 1.5 tablespoons of mixture into the middle of the wrap in a straight line.

Use the burrito roll method.  Fold two of the edges of the wrapper over the mixture, then roll the wrap like a cigar.  Repeat with all the wrappers.

Heat the frying oil to 375 and fry the egg rolls in batches of 6-8.  Cool and serve with more soy sauce.

Enjoy!

Thanks to stevendepolo for the image.