Nothing is more awesome than hanging out with your family and eating some good home-made food, am I right? So, hanging out with my little sister and fiancee while making home-made egg rolls was fantastic! We played Wii Golf and Mario Kart until my parents got home from a graduation party, and I made about 40 egg rolls for dinner (and lunch and snacks since we didn’t eat them all). If you are health conscious, you can load up on the veggies and find wrappers that are made for baking instead of frying and still get the same delicious egg-rolly goodness.
I forgot to take pictures of actually making the egg rolls because the process is pretty quick, and it’s risky to step away while either the filling or the roll are cooking. Overall, it probably took me an hour and a half to make 40 rolls, and most of that time was spent cooking the filling.
All you need to make one batch of egg rolls (about 22 rolls, depending on how many wrappers you get in the package) are the following ingredients:
- 1/2 cabbage
- 1 small onion
- 2-5 stalks of celery (you can substitute this for a teaspoon or so of celery salt)
- 2-5 carrots
- 1-3 chicken breasts (how many chicken breasts depends on how chicken-y you want your egg rolls) (also, if you are a vegetarian, you and substitute the chicken for tofu or for more veggies)
- up to 1/4 cup of soy sauce
- up to 2 tablespoons of ground ginger
- salt to season
- one package of wanton wrappers
- vegetable oil (you can use any type of oil–you can also use a Fry Daddy instead of a pot)
- Butter (optional; can be substituted with oil)
Here are the utensils you will need:
- Deep pot to boil the chicken and most of the veggies in.
- Sautee pan to mix/cook the filling in.
- Fry Daddy (optional; you can fry them in the deep pot used to boil the chicken in. All you have to do is wash it out and add an in and a half of oil.
- Slotted spoon
- Wooden spoon
- Standard eating table spoon (not the super round table spoons, but a soup spoon)
- Food processor (if you don’t have one, just shred things by hand/knife/whatever you want)
- Cookie sheet
- Cooling rack
- Paper towels
Here are the steps to delicious egg rolls:
- Fill a pot with water, season with salt, and add the chicken. Cube the celery, carrots, and onion and add to pot and bring to boil until the chicken is cooked and the veggies are fork-tender. Once everything is cooked, drain the broth. You can drain it with a bowl underneath it to save the homemade broth–that’s what I like to do since it gives you so much, and it’s really tasty.
- Next, place the sautee pan on the stove (or next to you, whichever is easier for you) and whip out your food processor. Slice the 1/2 head of cabbage into small-ish chunks and shred them. Depending on how coarse you like your filling to be, shred accordingly. Be sure that all pieces are uniform and that you didn’t chop up any of the stem–it’s very bitter tasting. Add a tablespoon or two of butter (or oil) and sautee until the cabbage is soft. Remove from heat.
- Now shred the cooked veggies and chicken and add to the sauteed cabbage. Stir together and add your spices to flavor. I wound up adding about a 1/4 cup of soy sauce, a tablespoon of ginger, and a tablespoon of salt, but my fiancee loves the taste of soy in his egg rolls. Keep in mind that the juicer the roll, the more chance the roll has of ripping/tearing or falling apart.
- I like to make all of the rolls before I begin cooking them. That way, my attention isn’t divided, and I don’t have to constantly stop what I’m doing, etc. Fill each wanton square with one soup spoon of filling. Follow the directions on the back of the package on how to roll and seal the egg roll. Some require you to wet the edges with water, some egg. The back also tells you where to place your filling and how to roll it up. This is the other large chunk of the time. Be sure that your rolls don’t touch one another or they will stick together and break when you have to pull them apart. Just place them on a flat surface that is cool, not warm or hot. Before you move on to step 5, place folded paper towels on the cookie sheet and place the cooling rack on top of that. This contraption drains the excess oil, but lets the rolls crisp up since they aren’t just sitting on the damp, oil-filled paper towel.
- Once they are all made up and the oil is hot enough, begin frying them 4-5 at a time. Make sure that once you set them in, you nudge them with whatever utensil you have so that they don’t stick to the bottom of the pan. Roll them occasionally, and let them cook until nice and golden brown, about 2 minutes (depending on how hot your oil is, you may cut that time in half.) Always keep you eye on it so that they don’t overcook.
- Let them cool, and tada! you have delicious, crowd-pleasing egg rolls. You can serve them as a side dish, or you can chow down on them as an entree, but either way, they are a yummy way to get your veggies.
The egg rolls will keep for up to seven days in a Tupperware in the fridge. To heat them up, if you want crispy rolls, you can re-fry them or pop them in the oven. For those of you who can’t wait to continue eating the deliciousness, just pop them in the microwave for about a minute or so. I hope this post has been hunger provoking, and inspiring to you all. It’s always nice to know that just because something looks or seems difficult to make, it doesn’t mean that it really is–most of the time it’s pretty easy!
Thanks for reading!
~Love Lindi
