Egg Rolls i.e. Packets of Happiness

For those of you who have never contemplated the joy of homemade egg rolls it's time to man up and contemplate it.  You my think of egg rolls as a nice side or appetizer.  But you would be wrong.  These are the main dish baby.  They are just that good.  Plus once you've succumbed to the egg roll induced trance and devoured 8 or 9 of them you won't have room for anything else anyway.  This is pretty much EXACTLY the recipe on the back of the egg roll wrappers, but we found that using sausage instead of hamburger makes a huge difference and we were just looking for places to pack in the calories.

Start with this:

Contents include:

• 1 pkg egg roll wrappers (they're not THAT homemade)
• 1 bag coleslaw mix
• 1 bag (several handfuls) bean sprouts
• 1 lb reduced fat ground sausage
• 2-3 tsp ground/minced ginger (here is looks like mandrake root)
• 3 green onions, chopped

And possibly the most important ingredient that I forgot to picture is. . .  oyster sauce.  Now I know what you're thinking.  I was an unbeliever like you once.  "Oysters?  Gross!  Oyster SAUCE?  Uber-gross!"  Even people who like oysters still think this.  But they are wrong.  And so are you.  Oyster sauce is the wonderful, magical sauce that turns all Asian recipes into happiness.  You think that soy sauce is the key, but that just tastes salty and weird when cooked.  So once again you're wrong.  You're wrong a lot today, did you notice?

Ok.  First cook up the sausage and ginger in a large skillet.  Trust me when I say large because it gets full later on.  If your skillet isn't big enough to handle all the cabbage/bean sprouts to come you might need to add them in batches.  When your sausage is about half done browning throw in the chopped green onions thusly.

(I apologize I should have waiting to take a picture until the sausage was ALL THE WAY done.  This looks a little gross and a lot unappetizing.)

When this is all done drain out the extra fat, (with the reduced fat stuff there's not anything to drain), and turn off the heat.  Then add in the whole bag of cabbage, and the whole bag of bean sprouts.  Then top it off with 3-4 generous Tbs of oyster sauce.  (I know it looks like octopus ink in this picture but it's really quite tasty.  It doesn't taste like oysters at all.)

Mix it all up good and let it rest and cool a bit while you set up your wrapping workspace.

You will need some space to roll up the egg rolls, somewhere to stack them, and a small cup of water.  If you have someone helping you this is probably a good time to start heating up your frying oil as well.  If you're flying solo don't try to do it all at once.  Just roll them all, then you can focus on frying without fear of 2nd degree burns.  Again, these rolling instructions are on the back of the egg roll package but here's some pictures to help you visualize.

Start with one egg roll wrapper laid at an angle (like a diamond) and spoon about 3Tbs of your egg roll mixture in the middle.  NOTE: I was taking these pictures at an angle while Miyagi rolled them up so the viewpoint is a little skewed.  Imagine you're standing slightly to the left of this and you'll get the gist.


Next fold up the bottom corner and tuck it in a little to make a nice little log shape.











Then fold in the sides like a burrito.

Then dab your finger in the water, swipe it over the top corner, and roll it all the way up to seal it.

Sometimes the bottoms get a little moist so if you're having trouble with the wrappers tearing when you pick up the egg roll try keeping them on parchment paper and handle them gently to avoid this.  Once you have a few done you can start frying, are cool like me (and a little white trash) then you have your own Fry Daddy and frying is fast and clean!  However if not you can heat up some vegetable oil in a large pot.  You only need about 2-3in of oil but a larger pot keeps the oil from spitting out everywhere.  Dump these in 350° oil and let them cook for about 3-4 minutes until they golden brown like this.


Then spoon them out and put them on some paper towel to cool.  Tongs are really good for this step.  If your egg rolls are greasy it means that your oil isn't hot enough.  They should look dry within about 30 seconds of removing them from the oil.

My biggest trouble is that I can't turn them over in the fryer without them flipping right back up.  Generally I take the frying spoon and balance it on the edge in such a way that it completely submerges the egg rolls in the oil.  This is dangerous and impractical and I advise all to avoid this method whenever possible.

Cook a bunch more and your tray will look like this:

Don't even bother artistically arranging them on a nice plate.  Just get some soy sauce and chomp them down as quickly as possible.  BEWARE.  They stay VERY hot for several minutes after frying so remember which ones you fried first so you can start by eating those.  This will guarantee the optimum egg roll trance experience.

Lastly, these are good reheated . . . but they're not great.  Maybe reheated in a toaster oven wouldn't be bad . . .  This time we rolled them all up, but only fried about half and froze the rest.  Hopefully they'll fry up fine later and be as tasty as the fresh ones.