Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Easy Egg Rolls


Asian food is by far my hardest to cook.  When I am craving a good General Tso Chicken, I just want to go out.  When we lived in Ames Iowa we had a friend we went to church with that owned a joint we could walk to.  To this day I haven't had hot and sour soup that even comes close to how delicious his was.  He was from Laos and was a delicious cook.  So knowing this you can understand that usually when I try a new Asian dish it doesn't go so well. (In comparison to House of Chen Im never going to measure up!)  In fact, upon telling my husband that I was making Egg Rolls for supper he asked if he needed to stop for PB&J supplies in case they didn't turn out quite right!  He had the best of intentions in asking too!  I totally didn't take it personal!  The good news is - Last night I found an easy recipe that EVERYONE at my table loved.
I found this recipe online but tweaked it just a bit.  It is simple and super easy.  Jon from House of Chen would laugh at its simplicity - but that is ok - he is 11 hours away and doesn't do shipping.

Here is what you need:
1 pound pork sausage
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger (from your spice cabinet)
2 1/4 cups shredded slaw mix (chopped a bit more)
Egg Roll wrappers - found in the produce section of your grocer
Peanut Oil for frying
Seseme seeds for topping (optional)
Soy Sauce for dipping (optional)

In a large frying pan, fry up your pork sausage with the spices.  Chop the pork small.  While that is working chop the slaw mix a bit smaller.  (This all depends on your brand of slaw mix)  If you would rather you can chop up 2 cups of cabbage and 1/4 cup carrots.  This is the same equivalent. 
Once the pork has cooked through, drain well, I even used paper towels to blot away any excess oil.

Combine your drained pork and slaw mix together.  Stir well. 
Lay out your Egg Roll wrappers in front of you, corner facing you so that it looks like a diamond.
Place 1/4 -1/3 cup of the mixture in the center of the wrapper.  First fold the sides in and then roll up the wrapper much like the chick at subway rolls up your sub.  Use water on the tip of your finger to "seal" the corner of the wrapper down.  Go ahead and make up all of your egg rolls before you begin frying because this process takes a bit longer than the frying process and can make you feel rushed.  Not good when dealing with hot oil and a frying pan!

I used my cast iron skillet for frying mine up - but there is no right or wrong pan for frying these up.  Pouring in a generous amount of peanut oil, fry them until golden brown.  This goes pretty quick, I just sort of rolled them over to get them brown on all sides. 
Set on paper towels to drain.  
Once they are all done and you are ready to serve them - you can garnish with sesame seeds if you so desire.  They are a perfect paired with Fried Rice.  I have a great recipe for that coming soon, (not my own just in case you were concerned! :)  No need for the Peanut Butter and Jelly!  This was a hit with the whole family!