Chicken and Greek yogurt egg rolls 鶏肉とヨーグルトソースの春巻き

When we barbecue chicken on weekends, we usually cook two chickens at a time in our Weber grill—not because we eat a chicken each but to assure we have leftovers to use in other dishes. The leftovers are always very good to have for the following week. The wings can be just heated up in a toaster oven for a quick snack, the breast meat is used to make salads, sandwiches and other dishes. The dark meat including some of the skin is used in chicken noodle or Minestrone-style  soup. The barbecued flavors make these dishes better than using raw chicken meat.  This time, I had a portion of breast meat left after one week and needed to finish it before it went bad. I saw an unusual recipe for a spring roll using yogurt and chicken breast (the original recipe calls for chicken tenderloin). I decide to try it in one weekday evening.

This was the second small dish we had that evening. I should have rolled them a bit tighter but it tasted very good. I served it with spicy mayonnaise.



The original recipe calls for green pea sprouts "tou-myou" 豆苗 but they are not available here (among the many sprouts we can get here, I have never seen green pea sprouts. The closest we can come may be pea shoots unless you grow green pea sprouts yourself).  I substituted this with water cress (just because I had an open bag).

Water cress: I just used a a big hand full but I could have used more. I cut into short segments and quickly sautéed it in olive oil until wilted ( a few minutes). I seasoned it with salt and pepper. I set it aside to cool in a metal bowl.

Chicken: The original recipe calls for chicken tenderloins but I used  chicken breast meat left over from the previous weekend’s barbecue. I hand shredded it along the grain of the meat (I probably had 1/4 of a whole breast).

Perilla: Perilla is going strong in our herb garden. I cut it into thin strips (4 medium leaves).

I mixed everything with mustard (1tsp), mayonnaise (2 tbs) and greek yogurt (2 tsp). I seasoned with salt and pepper.



Using a paste of flour as a glue, I assembled 6 small egg rolls (I should have rolled them more tightly).



Instead of deep frying, I shallow fried them in 1/4 inch of peanut oil turning once until the skin became brown and crispy.



This is a bit unusual spring roll but it tasted good. As long as it is encased in crispy egg roll skin anything can be made into egg rolls, it seems.