28.6.10

Experimentation

For dinner last night I made egg rolls - yum!  Andrew and I love egg rolls, and when we saw the wraps at No Frills we decided to attempt making our own.  I didn't really use a recipe, but I found these instructions for cooking them up.

To prepare the filling I minced up some garlic and added it to a wok with bit of oil.  Once the garlic was nice and golden I chopped up and added 1 pkg. mushrooms, 1 bunch green onions, a handful of baby carrots, and about a cup of snow peas.  Andrew really likes mushrooms, so the filling was heavy on the mushrooms but if you are making it yourself you could adjust the veggie quantities.

I was planning to split the veggie mixture in order to do half of the egg rolls with sausage, and half of them with imitation crab.  So, I used another frying pan to cook up two Italian sausages (I know, Italian + Chinese doesn't really make sense, but it tasted good!).  I find when I want to use ground pork, sausages are great because they are already seasoned.  I just squeeze the ground sausage out of the casing and throw the casing away.  We often do this when we make spaghetti as a substitution to ground beef.  But I digress!  When the sausage was all cooked, I drained off the oil and added half of the veggie mixture.  Then I added a small package of imitation crab to the rest of the veggie mixture left in the original wok.  I added about 2 cups bean sprouts to each of the mixtures (I used a lot, because bean sprouts cook down so much) and mixed them each up.  While it finished cooking I added some soy sauce and one egg to each of the mixtures, stirring quickly to mix it all together before the egg finished cooking.  Once the bean sprouts were cooked, I transfered each mixture into a bowl and put the bowls into the fridge to cool.

Now, in hindsight, I wish I had taken pictures of each step but being new to blogging, it didn't even occur to me until afterwards!

Putting the egg rolls together was easy, I just followed the instructions on the package and they went together no problem.  The only difference was that instead of using cornstarch and water to stick the edges closed like the package instructed, I beat up an egg and used that instead (a method I learned from my grandmother while making strudel).

I think they turned out quite well!


Here is a picture of them cooked up.


And here is a picture of the inside of the sausage egg rolls.

After tasting both kinds of egg rolls, the imitation crab and the sausage, I have to say that the sausage tasted better.  The flavour of the vegetables overshadowed the milder flavour of the crab, but the sausage was balanced just right with the vegetables. 

In the future I plan on experimenting with different mixtures using the egg roll wraps.  I would really like to find something that works with the imitation crab because it is a household favourite.  I am thinking imitation crab, roasted red peppers and goat cheese...mmm....goat cheese....

3 comments:

  1. We do this three different ways
    1) southwestern chicken filling (think corn, blackbeans, red pepper, spinach, cheese, etc.)
    2) Buffalo chicken
    3) Philly cheesesteak

    They are all yummy! Think of whatever you'd put on a sandwich and stuff it in an eggroll! :)

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  2. Mmmm! Thanks for the recommendations, I feel like I may need to try the southwestern chicken filling sometime soon!

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  3. Yummmmm do you do home delivery? LOL Hugs Naomi

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