I love eggrolls. I don’t know whether or not they’re an authentic asian food, and frankly, I don’t care. I just love ‘em.
It’s probably because they’re deep fried. (That’s as close as we’re getting to “chupaqueso” in this post folks — the word “fried.”)
Years ago I bought some eggroll wrappers and tried to make my own. I remember being frustrated by the results. So frustrated that I think I went an entire decade before allowing myself to be tempted by those wrappers again.
It turns out there are really only three tricks to making delicious eggrolls:
1) Chop the filling finely, and use as many of the “right” ingredients as you can. These include sausage, cabbage, grated carrot, green onion, and ginger–all of which should be cooked together before assembly.
2) Wrap tightly, and use a little water to stick the last corner in place.
3) Deep fry.
We’ve bought eggrolls from the local Chinese food places, and my kids love ‘em. We’ve bought pre-made eggrolls at the grocery store, and nobody will eat them. When I began lifting obviously home-cooked eggrolls out of the fryer, the kids were dubious.
They were even more worried about the homemade sweet-and-sour sauce — I added food coloring, but it wasn’t quite the right shade of obviously-artificial-red.
Then they tasted them, and I got that compliment that home-cooks LIVE for.
“Daddy, these are the better than any of the ones we buy!”
