Homemade egg rolls

Our friends, the Douangsovaths, came over to our house to teach us how to make egg rolls. 

After they arrived, we took a quick shopping trip for necessary ingredients. Lettuce I had growing in  my garden, a tomato was on the counter that i picked up at the farmers market earlier that week…but bean threads? Not one of my pantry staples. 

Here’s the shopping list: 

1. Green Cabbage (not Napa)
2. The largest bag of carrots that I’ve ever seen
3. Bean threads (in the asian food aisle)
4. Egg Roll Wrappers (they brought these; I’m actually not sure where they came from)
5. Whatever meat you want to use; we used ground chicken and ground pork (for convenience sake!). We also bought some small shrimp (and cut them up even smaller).
6. Magic spice mix: mixed salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder. I guessed for the proportions. You mix them all together until it “tastes right”. Ahem.
7. Canola oil for frying. Get a big one.
8. One beaten egg; this becomes the glue that keeps your egg roll closed.
9. A LARGE jar of duck sauce.

For equipment, you need a food processor, a fry daddy (which they brought with them). Kitchen tongs. 

Then, you just mix all the ingredients together in roughly equal parts. Then you use about a tablespoon of the mixture and roll it up in the wrapper as tightly (and as thinly) as you can. 

Then fry for 6-7 minutes until golden brown, drain on a rack. We made about a hundred and fifty rolls. Here’s the thing: you will not remember how many you’ve eaten if you just start cutting them up and eating them as you are making them, as we did.  I’m warning you about the egg roll fugue state that will ensue if you do this! Decide how many you will eat, put them on a plate, and then stop! (okay, you have been warned). 

The lettuce was used (and full disclosure: they bought some not knowing we had it growing in the garden already!) to wrap up the egg roll after it was fried; that’s how one of our friends eats them (he also put  a pile of a shredded carrot recipe he had made on it too). I tried it this way and it was excellent. Sort of helps you forget you are eating deep fried food when you disguise it by placing vegetables all around it. 

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