Egg roll 春巻き

Although I posted a few egg rolls 春巻, none are traditional/classic. So, I tried to make something close to “classic”. After consulting several recipes, I came up with this one. The filling is mostly vegetables (cabbage, carrot, bamboo shoot, rice noodle, shiitake mushroom, and a small amount of pork that I had roasted (in Weber with some smoke). It came out ok but we decided we are more used to and probably prefer gyoza 餃子 and shumai 焼売. We had fried shrimp heads from when we took out sashimi and sushi from Tako Grill. We re-fried and served them with the egg rolls. Sweet and sour sauce must be the most common dipping sauce but I did not make any sauce and instead, served this with green tea salt. 

Since I did not measure the ingredients, this is not recipe but note to myself. The filling made a total of 14 egg rolls.

Ingredients:
3-4 leaves of cabbage, thick ribs removed and cut into small rectangles
1 small carrot, peeled, sliced and Julienned
Half of a package of boiled  bamboo shoot, sliced and julienned
Ginger, skinned and thinly julienned
2 caps of fresh shiitake mushroom (dried could be better but I did not have time to rehydrate them )
1/4 package of dried rice “harusame” 春雨 noodle, soaked in boiling water for 5 minutes, cut into bite sized pieces
1 tbs vegetable oil plus a splash of sesame oil
4-5 slices of roasted pork julienned (or uncooked julien or ground pork and shrimp)

Egg roll wrappers
Mixture of water and flour to make a slurry/glue (to fasten the ends of the egg roll wrapper)

Seasonings:
2 tsp oyster sauce
2 tbs Xiaoshing wine
2 tbs Soy sauce
2 tsp potato starch + water to make slurry
Salt and pepper
1 tsp sesame oil

Directions:
In a wok on medium-high flame, add the oil and sauté the ginger, vegetables and the pork. Season with the salt and pepper. When, the vegetables are cooked add the seasonings and mix. Add the starch slurry and splash in the sesame oil and mix.
Spread the filling on a metal cookie sheet to cool to room temperature and then refrigerate covered.
(I made the egg rolls several days after I made the filling)

Assembly:
Place the wrapper diagonally and place the filling near center but more toward the bottom, fold the bottom corner over the filling and then both sides and roll. Paint the flour/water mixture on the far conner of the wrapper and complete the roll (see picture below). (I made the rolls 1-2 hours prior to cooking. I covered  them and placed them in the refrigerator).

Instead of my regular “tempura” set up, I used a 10 inch frying pan for to  “fry” them.  Place the rolls with the end seam side down first and turn it over after the bottom is brown and continue cooking until the wrapper is all brown and crispy.

These were pretty good. The filling was adequately seasoned and the wrapper was crispy. Initially we thought there is too much wrapper as compared to the filling since we were more used to the proportions of gyoza. But over time the flavors melded together and actually tasted better. We discovered one egg roll made a nice lunch. Also they crisped up very nicely in the toaster oven.