Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Eggrolls are easy!

When I get a craving for Chinese food I don't like to fork over $50 for a single meal for all of us so I make my own. I tend to do that with all kinds of though because I hate to pay somebody 4 times (or more) than actual cost to make or do something I can easily do myself. It makes no sense to me. Besides if I go out to eat anywhere I am usually wondering how many times the people touching my food actually wiped snot on their hands or if they actually washed their hands after going to the bathroom before touching my food. Grossed out yet?

Egg rolls are very easy to make and you can use whatever you like in them for filling. I usually buy the egg roll wrappers once or twice a month and they will keep in the fridge for over a week. That way I have them on hand when I get a craving.

The ingredients I use most often are ground pork, coleslaw mix, soy sauce and garlic. To make enough filling to use up the whole package of wrappers I use:

1 lb ground pork
1/2 bag of coleslaw mix
3T Soy sauce
1T minced garlic

I put a couple T. of water into a hot skillet and throw in the garlic (from a jar) and coleslaw mix. Just stir it around and cook on medium heat until the cabbage softens a little. If you cook it too long you are on your way to Sauer Kraut-you will smell it and know right away. Even if you get it too soft it's still usable don't worry. Line a mixing bowl with a paper towel and dump the mixture in the bowl to drain, you don't want any extra liquid in the filling or your egg rolls will get soggy. Using the same skillet brown the ground pork until done and then drain it in it's own paper towel lined dish. Some people actually rinse the meat but I don't, I just let it sit while I lay out the wrappers on the counter. Lay them out in rows so you can put the filling in and roll them. I plug in the fryer now and get a small dish with a little bit of water for sealing the egg rolls as you roll them. Some people use an egg mixture or some cornstarch and water mix but it's not at all necessary-plain water works just fine. If you don't have a deep fryer you can use a couple of inches of your favorite cooking oil in a pan.

Now take the paper towel out of the cabbage mixture bowl-the cabbage should be well drained now. Dump in your cooked pork, Soy sauce to taste and stir it all up-that's your filling.





Put 2 T. of filling in the middle of your wrapper. Now fold one corner in and then the 2 sides. Make it pretty tight so you don't lose any filling. Dab bit of water on the last corner and then roll it up tight. Smooth that last corner down so it sticks. Fry them for a couple minutes until they start to turn light golden brown. It's the secret to keeping them from getting greasy. I had a toddler emergency so the ones in my picture are a bit darker on the back side but hey this is real life not the Food Network right. Drain them on end in that dish lined with a new paper towel. If you lay them on their side the grease or oil will not drain out and that's gross.

Now if you have some left over wrappers you can use pie filling or do like I did. I had 2 left so I put a tiny bit of the filling I had made and I added a couple of chunks of apple to fill them out. The apples were left from snack time and since they were just sitting there in the dish already cut and peeled I stuck them in and they were yummy! The girls really like to eat these and I find it easy to get lots of veggies in their diet this way. I like broccoli slaw and zucchini, onion and ground turkey or ground beef with fresh baby spinach. Just use what you have on hand and experiment with leftovers too.


These freeze well both ways, cooked or uncooked. I freeze them uncooked and then drop them in the fryer frozen like you would some boxed store bought ones. I have a lid on my fryer though because there is a lot of splatter with the frozen ones. You could thaw them and fry too.

1 comment:

Renee Hall said...

you made me hungry with your facebook comment and I made homemade wontons now I can make eggrolls as well, Thanks!