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TIP OF THE DAY: Make Really Good Chinese Egg Rolls At Home

Egg Rolls
[1] Egg rolls with BBQ pork and sweet and hot chili dipping sauce. They’re baked, not fried. (Here’s the recipe (photo © Pork Be Inspired | National Pork Board).

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[2] Egg rolls served with a mix of rice vinegar and soy sauce (photo Red Stix | NYC [now closed]).

 

For the Chinese New Year, why not make your own egg rolls? Serve them as an appetizer, or as a snack with a cold beer.
 
 
EGG ROLL HISTORY

Like Chinese chicken salad, crab wontons, duck sauce, fortune cookies, General Tso’s chicken, and sweet and sour pork—not to mention the pu pu platter—the egg roll is a Chinese-American invention. Food historians believe it was first created in New York City in the early 1930s.

But over time, what was initially a richly layered roll with a mix of bamboo shoots, roast pork, scallions, shrimp, and water chestnuts evolved into a bland cabbage roll—a stuffing of shredded cabbage, flecked with bits of pork and carrot [source].

If you’d like to go back to the golden age of egg rolls, make your own! If you don’t like to deep fat fry, you can bake them.

This recipe came to us via Melissas.com, from Chef Martin Yan of Yan Can Cook.

See the difference between egg rolls and spring rolls, below.
 
 
RECIPE: CHEF MARTIN YAN’S EGG ROLLS

Ingredients For 12 Pieces

  • 12 egg roll wrappers
  • 1 tablespoon cooking oil
  • ¾ pound ground pork, chicken or beef
  • 2 teaspoons minced ginger
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1/2 teaspoon sugar
  • 2 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil
  • 12 ounces green cabbage, finely shredded
  • 1 medium carrot, finely shredded
  • 4 green onions, thinly sliced
  • 1 egg, beaten with 1 teaspoon water
  • Cooking oil for frying
  •  
    Don’t forget the condiments: hot mustard, jalapeño pepper jelly, plum sauce, ponzu sauce, sweet and sour sauce, Thai sweet chili sauce (sweet and hot) or just plain soy sauce. We like to serve two different options: Colman’s prepared mustard (a better version of “Chinese mustard”) and Thai sweet chili sauce (you can buy it or make your own).
     
    OPTIONAL INGREDIENTS

    You can add just about anything to an egg roll, as long as it’s finely chopped and well-drained (don’t add moisture).

  • There are fusion egg rolls that include pastrami (a Reuben egg roll) and corned beef and cabbage egg roll.
  • The menu at Rhode Island’s Egg Roll Cafe features the classic egg roll plus these flavors: Bacon-Egg-Cheese, Cheeseburger, Crab Rangoon, Fajita, Ham-Egg-Cheese, Pizza, Shrimp, Spinach & Feta, Steak & Cheese and Taco, among others.
  • Check out this recipe, featured in the Merced [California] Sun Star, which includes classic ingredients plus peanut butter and cinnamon. The creator, Fanny Go, was born and raised in Southern China (where there are no egg rolls) and now lives in Chicago.

    In addition to her basic recipe, she suggests these optional extras which you can incorporate into Chef Yan’s recipe:

  • ½ cup boiled shrimp, cut into dime-size pieces
  • ½ cup shiitake mushrooms, soaked, squeezed and thinly sliced
  • ½ cup well-drained bamboo shoots, julienned
  • ¼ cup water chestnuts, thinly sliced
  • ½ cup bean sprouts, well drained
  • Editor’s choice: Chinese sausage (if you can get hold of it)
  •  
    Once you get the hang of it, you can experiment with your favorite fillings, from vegetarian to Swiss cheese—or anything that goes well with beer or wine.

    Back to Chef Yan’s recipe:

     

    Preparation

    1. HEAT a wok or stir-fry pan over high heat until hot. Add the oil, swirling to coat the sides of the pan. Add the pork, ginger, and garlic; stir-fry until meat is cooked through, about 2 minutes. Drain the excess oil.

    2. COMBINE the pork, sugar, soy sauce, and sesame oil in a medium bowl. Set aside for 30 minutes.

    3. COMBINE the cabbage, carrot, and green onions in a large bowl. Add the meat mixture; toss well and let it cool slightly.

    4. FILL the rolls: Place a wrapper on a clean flat surface in front of you so that it looks like a diamond. Place 3 tablespoons of filling in the center. Fold the bottom point up over the filling and roll once. Fold in the right and left points. Brush the beaten egg on the top point. Continue rolling until you have a tight cylinder. Place the filled rolls on a baking sheet and cover with a damp cloth while filling the remaining rolls.

    5. FRY: Heat 2-3 inches of cooking oil over medium-high heat in a large pot or wok, to 350°F. Add the egg rolls, a few at a time, and fry until golden brown, 2-3 minutes per side. Lift out with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.

    Serve with sweet and sour sauce, plum sauce, hot mustard, or jalapeño pepper jelly.

    Recipe copyright Yan Can Cook, Inc., 2014
     
     
    THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EGG ROLLS, SPRING ROLLS & SUMMER ROLLS

    It can be very confusing, but we’ve done our best here to explain the differences.

    While some countries, including China, serve fried egg rolls and spring rolls, the terms are not synonymous. An egg roll has a heavier pastry wrapper of wheat dough that contains eggs—hence the name. The cooked roll can be sliced into sections. Spring roll wrappers are made without eggs. A fried spring roll is very fragile and can shatter like phyllo.

  • Egg rolls are deep-fried. The wrappers are thicker, making egg rolls more of a filled pastry. They can have a vegetable, egg, meat, and/or seafood filling. The filling varies by chef, and can include chopped shrimp, ground beef, ground chicken or turkey, matchstick-sliced pork or Chinese sausage, minced cabbage, carrots, garlic, ginger, and mushrooms.
  •   Egg Rolls
    [3] Chef Martin Yan’s egg rolls, served with sweet and sour sauce (photo © Melissa’s | Yan Can Cook).

    Spring Rolls
    [4] Translucent rice paper enables spring and summer rolls to show off the ingredients inside. (photo © Nature Box).

     

  • Spring rolls can be fried or not. The fried versions use thinner wheat wrappers and are narrower and more finger-like. They can be filled with pork and/or shrimp. Spring rolls can also be served in an uncooked rice noodle wrapper. These are traditionally eaten during the Spring Festival in China, hence the name; and are also popular in Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. The rice noodle wrappers are moistened into pliancy and translucency, then filled with seafood, bean thread vermicelli, red lettuce or Boston lettuce leaves, shredded cabbage, and carrot, plus wonderfully refreshing herbs—fresh mint, basil, and cilantro leaves. They are served with a sweet chili dipping sauce.
  • Summer rolls are made in the style of spring rolls, but with more seasonal ingredients. They are always in a rice noodle wrapper and never fried. The ingredients can be cooked, raw, or a mixture, and the colors and shapes show through the translucent wrapper. Ingredients typically include pork and/or shrimp or vegetables, rice vermicelli (noodles), and fresh herbs (basil, cilantro, and mint). The dipping sauce for summer rolls is typically a blend of rice wine vinegar and soy sauce or tamari, with minced scallions and a splash of toasted sesame oil.
  •  
    The dipping sauces for the different rolls can be mixed and matched. Our favorites include peanut sauce, a blend of peanut butter and hoisin sauce with garlic; sweet and hot red chili sauce; and rice vinegar/soy sauce.
     
    The way to best learn the differences, of course, is to go out and eat them, or make them at home. But note that even restaurants and retail establishments can abel these different rolls incorrectly.
     
     

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    VALENTINE’S DAY: Chocolate Stout, Sriracha Stout & Moonstruck Beer Chocolates

    Rogue Chocolate Stout
    Special chocolate craft brews for your
    Valentine. Photo courtesy Rogue Ales.
      Here’s what to get a beer-loving Valentine: two stouts created specifically for the occasion and some hot stuff.

  • Rogue Chocolate Stout, with a special Valentine-red label on a 750 ml bottle, is Rogue’s platinum award-winning Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout (one of the highest rated stouts in the world), infused with Dutch chocolate.
  • Rogue Double Chocolate Stout is an amplification of its Chocolate Stout, with big, rich flavors of chocolate, rolled oats, and honey. The 750ml bright red bottle is only available through the end of February.
  • Sriracha Hot Stout. If your Valentine prefers heat to chocolate, look for Rogue Sriracha Hot Stout. The only beer officially sanctioned by Huy Fong Foods (makers of the original Sriracha “Rooster” Hot Sauce) the heat is back for a limited time. Ebony-hued, with rich notes of caramelized malts and warm, slow burn on the finish, it’s also in a bright red bottle.
  • Special Stout Glass. To enhance the stout experience, Rogue collaborated with Spiegelau to create a special stout glass. Expertly crafted, it was designed to accentuate the roasted malt and rich coffee and chocolate notes of Rogue stouts.
  •  

    There’s more information at Rogue.com.

     

    CHOCOLATE BEER TRUFFLES

    Oregon’s Moonstruck Chocolate collaborated with top Oregon craft brewers to develop a superb beer truffle collection.

    The chocolate truffles are rich, nutty sweet, dark and intense, and fresh and hoppy, depending on the beer. Each 12-pack collection features three each of:

  • Deschutes Brewery Black Butte Porter Truffle
  • Full Sail Brewing Co. IPA Truffle
  • Rogue Ales Hazelnut Brown Nectar Truffle
  • Widmer Brother’s Brewing Hefeweizen Truffle
  •  
    Get yours at MoonstruckChocolate.com.

      Beer Truffles
    Beer truffles from Moonstruck Chocolate. Yes, they’re shaped like corks.
     
      

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    TIP OF THE DAY: Stack Cake Party

    Stack Cake

    Stack Cake

    Stack Cake
    Top: Strawberry Jam Stack Cake from Sweet Auburn Desserts, photo by Deborah Whitlaw Llewellyn. Here’s the recipe. Middle photo from TheSimpleElements.com. Here’s the recipe. Bottom photo from Maman Bakery Cafe | NYC.

      Do you have plans for Valentine’s Day? If you have nothing going on, why not round up a group of friends and neighbors and have a stack cake party?

    What’s a stack cake?

    STACK CAKE HISTORY

    Stack cake is an old-fashioned concept from the Southern Appalachian Mountains. It originated as a wedding cake alternative in that economically-challenged region.

    Each guest or family would bring a layer for the cake, and the bride’s family would provide the filling. The layers would be assembled at the party.

    The result: a rustic layer cake with no icing but lots of heart.

    Beyond weddings, stack cake parties were another way for people to get together to exchange recipes and gossip.

    Many types of cake layers could be brought, from sponge-like layers to cookie-like layers. In order stop the typical seven or eight layers from toppling over, each layer was sometimes pressed very flat.

    These days, another un-iced cake, called naked cake, is enjoying its moment. Unlike stack cake, the whole naked cake is made by one person, in one flavor. The sides of the cake aren’t iced, although the top usually is.

    Rather than an economical way to assemble a cake, naked cake economizes on calories and labor, by not frosting the sides.

    YOUR STACK CAKE PARTY

    You never knew exactly how the layers would add up. Even if you told everyone to bring an eight-inch layer of yellow cake or chocolate cake…well, what are the odds that they’d match, even if you provided a recipe?

    Besides, isn’t it more fun if to have a pot luck cake with different layers: carrot, chocolate, devil’s food, gingerbread, red velvet, vanilla and, well, we’d like a layer with big chocolate chunks?

    All you have to do is:

  • Tell everyone what size to make their layer cake (eight inches is standard).
  • You can cap the layers at four or five, or make two cakes.
  • You can assign flavors, or let the universe decide what you get.
  • You provide the filling and some icing to decorate the top.
  • Or you can delegate those, too, and just focus on the beverages.
  •  
      

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    FOOD HOLIDAY: National Tater Tot Day

    February 2nd is National Tater Tot Day.

    Chefs nationwide have been putting their own twists on this American comfort food.

    At The Eddy in New York City, the potato is blended with bacon prior to frying. The tots are served in a pool of mustard sauce, topped with pickled mustard seed and English pea purée (we substituted homemade basil mayonnaise).
     
     
    TATER TOTS HISTORY

    Tater Tots are an American side dish made from deep-fried, grated potatoes. They are miniature croquettes: crisp little cylinders of hash brown-style potatoes. Tater is an dialect form of potato (first found in print in 1759), and “tots” came from their small size.

    Although the name may seem generic, Tater Tots® is a registered trademark of Ore-Ida. Tater Tots were created in 1953 when Ore-Ida’s founders, brothers F. Nephi Grigg and Golden Grigg, were considering what to do with leftover slivers of cut-up potatoes from their French fries.

    They chopped them up, mixed them with flour and seasonings, and pushed logs of the grated/mashed potato mixture through a form, slicing off and frying small pieces. The rest is history.

    The Ore-Ida brand was acquired by H. J. Heinz Company in 1965.
     
     
    PICKLED MUSTARD SEEDS

    What’s with pickled mustard seeds? Over the last year or so, they’ve become a trend with chefs, some of whom use them as a condiment with fatty foods (bacon, charcuterie, fried food, pastrami, etc.).

      Gourmet Tater Tots
    [1] Tater Tots interpreted at The Eddy in New York City, with pea purée and pickled mustard seeds (photo © The Eddy | NYC).

    Mustard Seeds

    [2] Pickled mustard seeds. Here’s the recipe (photo © OurDailyBrine.com).

     
    The Eddy paired them with their version of Tater Tots.

    To make your own, follow this recipe from OurDailyBrine.com to make your own pickled mustard seeds.
     
     
    MORE TATER TOTS RECIPES

  • Baked Potato Tots
  • Gourmet Potato Tots
  • Hot Dog & Tater Tot Skewers
  • Jumbo Tater Tots With Jalapeños & Jack Cheese
  • Loaded Potato Tots
  • Potato Tot Casserole With Short Ribs, Mushrooms & Truffle Paste
  • Sweet Potato Tots
  • Tater Tots With Pickled Mustard Seeds
  •  
     

    CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OUR HOME PAGE, THENIBBLE.COM.
      
     
     
     
      

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    FOOD FUN: Groundhog Day

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    Celebrating Groundhog Day with coffee grounds. Photo courtesy Folgers.

     

    The Italian artist Giulia Bernardelli doesn’t work in pastels or oils; she works in coffee. See her stunning work here.

    For more images, go to Google Images and search for Giulia Bernardelli.

    You may not be able to paint with spilled coffee, but you can try your skill with ground coffee.

    Get an artist’s paintbrush, and fashion your picture as you may have once put magnetic hair on Wooly Willy.

    What to do with your coffee groundhog? We have no idea; it’s just food fun.

     
     
      

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