Month: August 2017

Makes 40 to 50 egg rolls
Preparing time: 60 to 90 minutes
Cooking time: 90 minutes

Egg rolls, known as chả giò in Vietnamese, are popular Asian finger food. Everyone has different ways of preparing egg rolls. Bác Kít, my aunt and I have our own special way. In this article, we will share our homemade egg roll recipe with you. They are composed of miến (glass) noodles, mushrooms, carrots, cabbage, eggs, pork, chicken, and seasoning. Our egg rolls are crunchy outside yet soft with a balanced amount of tasty meat and vegetables inside.

There are three different ways to eat the egg rolls:

1. Eat the egg rolls by themselves as finger food.
2. Prepare them in a vegetable wrap. The egg rolls are cut into 1-inch bite-size pieces. Each individual piece is wrapped in lettuce with several strands of rice noodles, and a few leaves of cilantro. It is then dipped in a sweet and sour dipping fish sauce.
3. Serve with noodles. The egg rolls are cut into 1-inch bite-size pieces. The pieces are placed on top of rice noodles with lettuce, cilantro, bean sprouts, and Sweet and Sour Fish Sauce. Mix all the ingredients together and chow down.

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Ingredients

You may have problems finding some of the ingredients below in your neighborhood American grocery store. You can visit the closest Asian / Vietnamese grocery near you or Asian Grocery in Central Florida (click here for my compiled list of Asian grocery stores in Central Florida) for the special ingredients. I also included a direct link to Amazon by clicking on the picture of the hard to find ingredients for your convenience.

For vegetarians, you can remove the meat or egg ingredients and substitute them with your choice of vegetables such as 2 to 3 casava and/or 1 cup of cooked mung beans.

1 (1.8-ounce) package miến bean thread noodles
½ cup pre-chopped black dried fungus mushrooms
OR (slice them into thin slivers) 4 ears medium dried black fungus mushroom

60 frozen egg roll skins (my favorite brand is TYJ Spring Roll Pastry. If you have extra packages, you can freeze the un-open packages for another time. Make sure to keep them seal well or they will dry up. I found two locations for online purchases:

1. Amazon (expensive shipping and 500 in quantity)

2. HEB grocery store. They are located primarily in Texas.

HEB link or copy and paste — https://www.heb.com/product-detail/spring-home-tyj-spring-roll-pastry/297879?_requestid=1386282#
3 carrots, peeled
1 (½ to 1pound) cabbage
½ medium onion
1 pound ground pork (Optional ingredient or you can substitute with turkey)
1 pound ground chicken
1 tablespoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
2 eggs
1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
3 cups vegetable oil

Prepping instructions

Soak the dried noodles and mushrooms in separate bowls of hot water for approximately 10 minutes. Allow the frozen egg roll skins to de-thaw for 30 minutes. Clean and drain the vegetables.

Peel the carrots, peel and discard the dead leaves on the cabbage. Shred the carrots and cabbage. You can do it manually with a shredder or with a food processor to speed up time.   Dice the onion into small pieces. Cabbage and carrots produce lots of juice after being shredded. Squeeze as much juice from the shredded vegetables as possible with cleaned hands. Draining the vegetables prevents the egg rolls from being soggy. Mix the shredded vegetables in a large mixing bowl.

Remove the mushrooms & noodles from the water. Squeeze the water from the mushrooms and noodles with cleaned hands. Cut the noodles into 1 to 2 inch long strips. If the mushrooms are not pre-chopped, chop them into fine pieces. Mix the pork and chicken with the ground vegetables, mushrooms, noodles, salt, pepper, and eggs.

Combine flour and 2 teaspoons of water in a small bowl. Mix into a paste. Use the paste to stick the flap of the egg roll skin to the egg roll. Wrap The Egg rolls.

Wrapping procedures

(some egg roll skin wrapper packages may contain illustrations and/or instructions for wrapping procedures):
Peel the egg roll skins apart. Place one egg roll skin on a large plate. Rotate so that a corner faces you. Place 1 heaping tablespoon of the meat and vegetable mixture in the center of the paper. Spread the mixture 2½ to 3 inches perpendicularly to the corner facing you. Flip-up the corner facing you over the mixture, such that the fold is flush against the meat and vegetable mixture. Flip the left and right corners evenly over the first fold such that the new folds are flush against the meat and vegetable mixture.

Roll the folded shape tightly away from you. Make sure any loose ends of the egg roll skin are neatly tucked in. Tucking in loose ends reduces crumbs when frying. The roll should be tight enough to prevent the mixture from escaping during frying. Spread flour paste thinly on the last corner of the paper and continue rolling over the corner. The paste glues the end to the roll.

Warning:

When frying, do not allow the oil to become too hot. The outside of the egg rolls will burn but the inside will be uncooked. The deep fryer maintains the oil at a constant temperature hence the cooking inconsistency will be eliminated. I have been using a brand DeLongHi deep fryer for at least 10 years. It has been serving me very well. I allowed the oil to preheat for 10 minutes then I fry the egg rolls for 8 to 9 minutes or as golden as you like. It’s simple and splatter-free.

Frying Instructions

If frying in a frying pan, preheat the oil in a deep fryer or a deep non-stick frying pan for 1 to 2 minutes at medium heat. Dip the tip of an egg roll into the fryer to test for the temperature of the oil. Wait until the oil fizzes. Place the egg rolls into the fryer. Fry the egg rolls in batches of 10 or until you cannot fit anymore. Avoid stacking them. Depending on how hot your heat is and at your own judgment, fry each batch at medium heat for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. Make sure to constantly rotate the egg rolls frequently (like every 1 to 2 minutes). Place two paper towels on top of a plate. Transfer the fried egg rolls to the plate. Use a paper towel to blot the excess oil from the egg rolls.

You can freeze the egg rolls in two ways:

1. Freeze the wrapped and uncooked egg rolls until ready to be fried. When ready to fry, do not de-thaw the egg rolls. Place them immediately into the hot oil. This prevents the egg rolls from becoming soggy.
2. Freeze the fried egg rolls until ready to eat. Heat them up with a toaster oven or an oven.
   Place the egg rolls side by side in a large zip-lock freezer bag. Do not stack them. One bag can hold up from 16 to 18 egg rolls.

Tips:

After frying a large number of egg rolls for 30 to 40 minutes, many burnt flakes and crumbs blacken the oil in the frying pan. If you do not own a deep fryer, one way to avoid blackened egg rolls when frying is to fry them in two separate pans. Pour 2 cups of vegetable oil into a non-stick frying pan. Preheat the oil at medium heat for 1 to 2 minutes.

Do the fizz test with an egg roll. Place the first batch (10 to 12 egg rolls) into the frying pan. Fry the egg rolls for 2 minutes on each side. Pour 6 cups of oil into a non-stick deep saucepan. Preheat the oil at medium heat. After 4 minutes of frying on each side of the egg rolls, transfer the egg rolls from the frying pan into the saucepan.

Place the second batch of uncooked egg rolls into the frying pan. This time, allow the second batch to fry for 16 minutes in the frying pan. Rotate every 2 minutes. Fry the transferred egg rolls for 11 minutes in the saucepan. Rotate occasionally. Fry the egg rolls for the last 5 minutes at medium-high heat.

Transfer the finished egg rolls to a dish. Transfer the second batch of egg rolls from the frying pan to the saucepan. Continue to fry for 4 more minutes at medium-high heat. Apply the same procedures to the remaining uncooked egg rolls. This process is rather lengthy but it will produce nice golden egg rolls.

I would love to hear your thoughts on my homemade egg roll recipe. Please enter your comment below.

Frying tofu can be a chore. What I hate most is the splattering of grease popping on your hands, arms, and/or even your face. After many years of frying up the tofu for spring roll/summer roll demonstrations and of course other tofu dishes, I found an easy way for me to fry the tofu that is simple and with less grease splatter. I cannot guarantee completely any splatter, only less. Well, unless you fry the tofu in a deep fryer with a lid.

In this article, I will share my technique on how to fry tofu, minimizing the splatter.

I often use firm tofu by House Foods. It gave me the best result. You may use any brands as long as they are firm or extra firm. For the House Foods brand, there are usually four pieces of tofu. After removing the tofu from the container, I allow them to dry for a few minutes by propping them up vertically on the skinnier side. You can also use a paper towel to pat them dry and speed up the process.

I cut each piece into half, yielding eight pieces of tofu. I use about 1/8 cup or about 2 to 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil. In terms of oil, you may choose coconut oil or other types of oil. I do not like to use corn oil because, for some reason, my chin would break out with hard and painful pimples when I eat fried food with corn oil. I am not 100% sure it was created by corn oil but since I reduced my consumption of corn oil, I do not have the breakout.

Next, I turn on the heat between medium and medium-high. The heat will depend on your stove. I have a gas stove so it can get hot pretty quickly. I lined the tofu side by side in the frying pan. I do not want the grease to be hot when I place the tofu into the pan.

This prevents splattering. I set the timer for about 10 to 15 minutes to allow the grease to get hotter. The speed of heating up the oil in the frying depends on how many tofu pieces and how much oil you have frying. The more you have in the pan the slower it is to fry.

I use an iron skillet so it takes a little while to heat up but once it’s heated up, it gets pretty hot. It’s a judgment call on your part on how long to set your timer for the tofu.

Once one side turns golden, I rotate to the next side. Be careful when you rotate the sides. This time the oil should be much hotter than before. Splattering will happen. I use a pair of chopsticks and a spatula to help flip the tofu to another side.  I set the timer around 2 to 3 minutes or until the next side becomes golden. I repeat the same process for all sides. If your pan gets pretty hot, you may want to check it every 2 minutes. The bottom and the top of the tofu will take 30 to 40 seconds to become golden.

Once all sides of the tofu are golden brown or as golden as you like, remove the tofu from the oil. Place them on a plate lined with two paper towels to help absorb the grease.  Remove the pan from the heat and you are done.

Happy Eating Healthy!

I love to hear your comments and feedback on how this method works for you. Please leave your thoughts below.