Asian Cuisine Exposure Therapy Part II: Vegetable Eggrolls

When I was in my pre-teen years and my brother in high school, I remember us wanting to make an attempt at homemade eggrolls. I remember how excited we were to go out and buy Five-Spice and actually use it in a recipe!!!! I am from a very small town in Michigan (actually not even town – technically a village) so Five-Spice was a very big deal for us. Don’t worry, we have greatly expanded both our culinary and geographical horizons since then. Our eggroll expedition was less than stellar, hell even less than average. The kitchen was a mess with frying oil splattered all over and we were left with soggy, funny tasting eggrolls. That was a big blow to our “exotic” cooking ambitions. I consumed only restaurant and premade eggrolls from then on…until just recently during my Asian Cuisine Exposure Therapy!

As I mentioned in my Kung Pao post, I went to Use Real Butter for baseline recipes, and just as with the Kung Pao, I had problems finding all the proper ingredients and ended up improvising with what I had, adjusting to my particular tastes. I guess I should confess it here and now: I adore garlic and I adore ginger. I almost always increase the amounts of these two glorious ingredients from what original recipes recommend. I also love having my hands smell of ginger and garlic for days after I chop them. So, word of warning, if you are not a garlic and ginger fanatic, you may want to reduce the amounts I use.

Chopping prep complete, now to start the cooking

All the veggies have been cooked down and are ready to wrap!

I didn’t have enough cabbage so I used more bean sprouts, mushrooms, carrots, and added water chestnuts. I could not find black mushrooms in the store, so I replaced then with Wood Ear mushrooms which I could find and are apparently a popular ingredient in China…so said the back of the Wood Ear package. WARNING! The dried mushrooms have to be rehydrated in warm water for about 15-20 minutes before use. As for the frying, it was actually very easy, and I found it worked best in a Dutch oven. The high sides protected me from splattering oil. As for the result…amazing! My boyfriend said that it was the best eggroll he has ever had and I think he ate a greater amount of eggrolls than he did Kung Pao chicken. They really were just fantastic and will be made again and again.

The finished product along side the potstickers...Om nom nom nom

Vegetarian Eggrolls

Adapted from Use Real Butter

Ingredients:
Vegetable oil for deep frying and sautéing
2 cups scallions (green onions), julienned
3 cups napa cabbage, shredded
2 cans bean sprouts
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp rice wine or dry sherry
2 tbsps ginger, minced
3 tbsps garlic, minced
1 cup bamboo shoots, julienned
1 can water chestnuts chopped
15 Wood ear mushrooms, rehydrated and julienned
3 large carrots, shredded
6 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp water
2 tsp sesame oil
3 tsp cornstarch
25 spring roll wrappers
1 egg, beaten

Instructions:

1. Mix the soy sauce, water, sesame oil, and cornstarch together in a cup. Set aside.

2. Heat 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil in a large frying pan. Sauté scallions, bean sprouts, and cabbage with salt and rice wine (or sherry) until cabbage is softened. Remove from heat. Drain off excess liquid and set aside.

3. Heat the garlic and ginger in 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil in the same frying pan. When fragrant, sauté the mushrooms, carrots, water chestnuts and bamboo shoots.

4. Add the cooked cabbage and sprouts. Pour in the soy sauce mixture and combine the ingredients until well-coated. Remove from heat.

5. When mixture is cool, place 2-3 tablespoons of filling near one corner of the spring roll wrapper and roll/wrap on the diagonal, folding the sides in tidily. Rub a little bit of egg mixture on the final corner to seal the spring roll wrapper.

6. Fry in oil at 350°F in a Dutch oven for a few minutes or until golden. Remove from oil and let rest on a cooling rack (not paper towels). Serve hot.

7. If you are not going to eat all the eggrolls, DO NOT fry the extras and follow the storage note below.

Note on storage: This recipe makes a lot of eggrolls. If this is for a big dinner or party you will be fine because there is no way you will have leftovers. However, if you do not plan on eating all of them, set the un-fried eggrolls you aren’t going to use on a piece of wax paper on a cookie tray. Make sure none of the eggrolls are touching, then place the tray in the freezer for about 30-40 minutes until the eggrolls skins have frozen a bit and are no longer sticky. You can then put them in plastic containers or bags and place back in the freezer. If you just put them in the storage containers right away, they will all stick together and you will have a giant eggroll mess. Make sure they defrost completely before you fry them, otherwise you could end up with a potentially dangerous oil explosion on your hands.

 

Asian Cuisine Exposure Therapy Part I: Kung Pao Chicken

Cooking Asian cuisine has always scared the living daylights out of me. I am unfamiliar with many of the ingredients, have a poor bead on the techniques used to create the unique flavor profiles, and I figured there was no way I could ever make anything that could hold a candle to even the dingiest Chinese carry-out. Well, I decided to face my fear head on and in a rather grandiose fashion…at least in my mind it was grandiose. I planned a menu of homemade Kung Pao chicken, homemade veggie eggrolls and homemade pork pot stickers (including that awesome spicy chili sauce you get at restaurants!). This, for me, was the very definition of exposure therapy. I turned to a blog I frequent, Use Real Butter, for the basic recipes. She has some fantastic recipes for a wide range of Asian cuisine; you should give the site a visit.

Kung Pao Chicken - this is what was left for lunch the next day

Here are my thoughts on the Kung Pao chicken. (I will put the eggrolls and pot stickers in a separate post.) WARNING! Chicken marinates for 30 minutes – plan accordingly! I followed the recipe pretty closely actually. I had a little over a pound and a half of chicken which is more than the original recipe called for, so I doubled the marinade recipe and tripled the sauce – I also just like my Kung Pao to be saucy. I could not find Shaoxing cooking sherry or black vinegar, so I replaced it with regular cooking sherry and balsamic vinegar respectively. It was still very tasty, but I would recommend that if you can find the proper ingredients use them. I minced rather than sliced the garlic and ginger so it would distribute more evenly throughout the dish. I also added water chestnuts, thinly sliced red pepper and tripled the amount of peanuts ‘cause I love me some peanuts! I found this dish incredibly easy to make and just as good as – if not better than – what I would get at a local restaurant. I have officially overcome my fear of Asian cuisine, well at least some Chinese cuisine. Perhaps I shall tackle Indian food next!

Kung Pao Chicken
Adapted from Use Real Butter

Ingredients:

For Chicken
1.5 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast – remove fat, cut into cubes or short, thin slices (I prefer slices)
2 tsps cornstarch
4 tsps soy sauce
2 tbsps Shaoxing cooking sherry – or regular cooking sherry
2 tsps sesame oil
3 tbsps vegetable oil (not olive oil)
8-12 dried red chili peppers, halved and de-seeded
2 tbsps of minced ginger
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 red pepper sliced thin
1 cup whole bamboo shoots
2 cans sliced water chestnuts
1.5 cups peanuts or cashews, roasted and unsalted
Black pepper to taste
2 stalks green onions, diced
Rice

For Sauce
6 tbsps soy sauce
3 tsps sugar
3/4 tsp black vinegar – or Balsamic vinegar
6 tbsps water
1.5 tsp cornstarch

Instructions:

1.  Mix the chicken with 2 teaspoons of cornstarch, 4 teaspoons of soy sauce, 2 tablespoons of Shaoxing cooking sherry, and 2 teaspoons of sesame oil in a bowl. Cover and place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, make the sauce. Combine all of the sauce ingredients in a bowl, mix together and set aside – yes it is that easy! This is also a good time to start cooking rice to serve with the Kung Pao chicken.

3. Heat 2 tablespoons of cooking oil in a wok, sauté pan, or large frying pan on high heat. When the oil is hot, add the chicken and stir-fry until half-cooked. Remove the chicken from pan and put into a bowl.

4. Heat the remaining cooking oil in the same pan on high heat. Toss in the ginger, garlic, and chili peppers, stirring until the oil is fragrant. Add the chicken, bamboo shoots, sliced red peppers, water chestnuts and peanuts and stir for a few turns. Pour in the sauce and continue to stir-fry until the chicken is coated and cooked. Add black pepper to taste.

5. Serve over hot rice and sprinkle with green onions and extra peanuts

Dig In!

 

Well Hello There

Welcome to Sweet Science, the world’s newest and freshest baking/cooking blog! My name is Cara and I’m an anthropology PhD candidate at Wash U. We’ll get to know each other more in the next post (or you can check out my About section), but for now… Welcome! Take off your coat, kick up your heels, make yourself at home. You’ll like it here!