The Hirshon Chinese-American Egg Rolls - 蛋卷

Updated at: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 13:05:59 GMT

Step 1

HOW TO MAKE EGG ROLL FILLING

Step 2

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Put the cabbage, carrots, and celery into the boiling water and cook for about 2 minutes. Transfer the veggies to an ice bath and drain. Thoroughly squeeze out all the excess water from the vegetables (you can put the drained veggies in a clean kitchen towel and squeeze out the water). This is a very important step because if the filling is too wet, you will have a wet filling and soggy egg rolls!

Step 3

The Chinese bamboo strainer/spider really comes in handy for scooping veggies out of the boiling water and even for frying the egg rolls if you are making a large batch of them.

Step 4

Once dry, transfer the veggies to a large mixing bowl. Add all other ingredients except egg. Toss everything together. The filling is ready to be wrapped!

Step 5

One of our readers reported back his egg rolls were bland so it would be good to try the filling for seasoning and add more salt or seasonings to your taste. As a general rule, the filling will taste a little bit more salty at this point until it has a chance to absorb the seasoning but remember, you can add seasoning when you eat it but if it is too salty, then there is little that can be done to save the batch so season with this point in mind. You may also want to wrap a test egg roll (we always did at the restaurant before we made a batch of 600) and fry it to check the taste before you wrap the entire lot!

Step 6

Back in the day, the egg roll wrappers at the restaurant used to come in 5-pound bundles. Each person would start with one and work their way down the stack, which made about 120 egg rolls. We were pretty expert at making sure we had enough filling so that there’d be no leftover wrappers. It’s not an exact science, so play it by ear.

Step 7

HOW TO WRAP EGG ROLLS:

Step 8

The way to wrap these egg rolls is to first take a small fistful of filling, squeeze it a little in your hand until it is compressed together, and place it on the wrapper. Basically, it’s similar to the method you’d use to wrap a burrito. Just add a thin layer of beaten egg yolk to make sure it stays sealed. Line them up on a lightly floured surface, and continue assembling until you run out of ingredients.

Step 9

In a small pot, heat oil to 325 degrees. You don’t need too much–just enough to submerge the egg rolls. Carefully place a couple egg rolls into the oil, and fry them for about 5 minutes until golden brown. Keep them moving in the oil to make sure they fry evenly.

Step 10

My father used to tell me that frying egg rolls was a fool-proof task. You just slide them gently into the oil, and keep them moving while they are frying. When they’re done, they’ll “call” you with a slightly louder sizzling noise. That splattering noise is signaling that the filling is getting hot inside. The steam is escaping, causing the oil to bubble up.

Step 11

You can serve them after they’ve cooled a bit. Freeze any leftovers.

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