Some days I'm proud to be Asian, and some days I'm REALLY proud to be Asian. On Sunday evening, I took a recommendation from my (Chinese-American) boss, busted out my wok, and made egg rolls. On Sunday night I waved a map of Asia from my terrace while wearing a kimono and triangle rice paddy hat. One delicious truth, one silly hyperbole.

My boss, an adventurous and prolific cook known amongst her peers for dozen-course brunches, brought me a recipe and Chinese mushrooms to help get on my way. Although egg rolls have always seemed to me like one of those restaurant-or-takeout foods that just doesn't amalgamate from your fridge, I poured one dash of soy sauce out for my country-adjacent-ish homies and gave it a go.

You'll need:
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 T rice vinegar
1 T brown sugar
~1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 napa (Japanese) cabbage (about 2-1/2 pounds), thinly sliced - can be substituted for traditional cabbage, as I did due to my whitey whitetown Acme. I actually wound up using significantly less cabbage than this; with the other measurements my mix was strong without being overpowering.
4 medium carrots, coarsely grated
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 T grated fresh ginger
~5 re-hydrated Chinese mushrooms, thinly sliced, if you've got them (Sidebar: Freeze the mushroom-hydration water in a little baggie to use in a soup or something later. I've used it in instant miso soup to add a more rich flavor. Ghetto but proven.)
Coarse salt and ground pepper
6 scallions, thinly sliced (I left these out, but recipe calls for them.)
16 square egg roll wrappers (like Nasoya, which Acme carries) - I bought one pack and used 10 wrappers for my cabbage volume reasons.
1 egg, lightly beaten
Duck sauce or sweet and sour sauce for serving

The recipe also calls for 1 pound ground pork; I used shrimp instead and will probably try crabmeat next time.

What to do:
In a small bowl, combine soy sauce, vinegar, and sugar. In a large skillet, heat 1 T oil over medium-high heat. Add cabbage, carrots, garlic, ginger, and mushrooms; season with salt and pepper. Cook, tossing, until vegetables are tender, 3 to 5 minutes.

Raise heat to high; add soy sauce mixture (and pork if that's your deal) and cook, tossing, until liquid has evaporated (and hypothetical pork is no longer pink) - about 5 to 7 minutes. Mix in scallions if you're the scallion-y egg roll type. I sauteed the shrimp up separately with a little oil and soy sauce and added these to the fully cooked vegetables. Transfer the mixture to a plate to cool to room temperature. Lay wrappers flat on a work surface and assemble egg rolls.

Now.

Here the photocopied recipe directs kind reader to page 46 from our one-page 44. I could see where we were going with this given our clues, though, and laid the squares down on my cutting board as diamonds. I spooned a hefty spoonful of cabbage shrimpslaw onto the middle and folded the back point up and over the filling, tucking it into the topmost edge. I carefully rolled the lump over its edge, then dabbed a bit of beaten egg onto each side point, folding them up and onto the wrap-covered filling. I then blotted a bit more egg onto the top point of the wrap and gave it one more roll to seal the little cabbage package. I'm assuming this is more or less what page 46 said, because it worked pretty damn well.

The directions continue to instruct patient, long-sleeved reader to fry these suckers in a 5-quart pot of 6 cups of vegetable oil, 4 at a time, at 350 for about 2 minutes each. Yeahhh...no. Not happening in my kitchen. I went the baked route because A. I'm a set-it-and-forget-it kind of gal; B. I don't clean the kitchen THAT well; C. Health - laziness first, but yes, health as well; and D. I don't have a Cornballer.*

To bake:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly oil a rimmed baking sheet; place egg rolls on sheet and brush with 1/4 cup oil. Bake until golden, about 10 minutes. Serve with duck sauce or sweet-and-sour sauce. If baking from frozen, bake about 15 minutes -- apparently you can prepare these egg rolls, freeze them in a single layer until firm (at least 2 hours,) transfer to a resealable plastic bag, and keep frozen for up to 3 months. I did not do this. I ate them all in a day and a half.

Anyway, this is a fantastic recipe to keep in mind at the grocery store as you wander past the napa. It whips up surprisingly quickly and shockingly simply for such professional results - this one's definitely worth the effort! To paraphrase Cypress Hill, roll it up, bake it up, eat it up, and enjoy.



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