Looking for a tasty Asian dish or rather a truly American classic? Let’s try this Egg rolls recipe that’s more than fantastic!

We are a sucker for deep fried dough, and anything related to it. Make it hot and then there is no army that can stand in our way.

Even those who otherwise nudge those greenie juicy things called vegetables to the side of their plate, chomp through them with a smile, if hidden under a carb and fat dressed cape.

The world is full of such delights starting with a very basic Fried Bread with various sweet or sour toppings, through a more well-known and everyone’s favorite Donut to a locally very popular, yet not so much overseas, Chinese Spring rolls.

Spring rolls are consumed in China for centuries but unlike paper and gunpowder, spring rolls weren’t nearly as interesting as to tickle the world’s fancy for years to come. In fact, in most places spring rolls still haven’t cracked through the perimetrial limits of Asian buffets.

Although spring rolls have everything we love, like meat rolled in deep fried carbs, it doesn’t have enough of it for a hearty unhealthy meal. Above all, spring rolls sometimes skip on meat entirely and only rolls in vegetables or legumes like red beans.

To address such grave issues, a couple of clever chefs figured, that rolling the most popular ingredients into a thicker and bigger dough will make spring rolls more appealing to a wider consumer segment, so egg rolls were born.

The distinctive but now thicker, cylindrical shape was filled with shredded cabbage and some type of meat, like pork or chicken, then fried in hot oil. Except if someone makes egg roll bowl and leaves the wrap out.

Unsurprisingly, egg rolls were an instant hit for the consumers of American Chinsese Restaurants. This makes egg rolls a truly American dish, just like Bolognese Spaghetti, Skillet pizza or French onion dip.

Egg rolls shouldn’t be confused with spring rolls, although they may sound similar, they aren’t. Egg rolls are no doubt was inspired by spring rolls since both employ the cylindrical shaped pastry wrap filled with various ingredients but anyone with sane taste buds can make a difference between them.

Egg rolls are typically bigger, both in length and diameter due to the thicker pastry that is employed by their making, with the New York style egg roll growing as enormous as 2” (5cm) wide in diameter and 6” (15cm) in length.

Beside their size, other characteristics reserved only to egg rolls are the bubbles that develop on their surface during frying, due to the escaping moisture from the thick dough.

Spring rolls filling can vary wide and far from sweet to sour which is yet unimaginable for egg rolls that is mainly reserved to savory part of the spectrum with strong roots into cabbage and meat.

Curiously, eggs have nothing to do with either the dough or the filling, but it seems we can’t stop using the name anyway for no apparent reason. Some like to imagine that the Chinese word for ‘spring’ sounds similar to the English ‘egg’ but those people most likely repeated the 春天 – Chūntiān one too many times.

Ingredients

Wrap

2 cups / 240g Flour
¼ cup / 100ml Water
1 piece / 60g Egg (optional substitute with 2 tablespoon / 30ml Water)
1 teaspoon / 5g Salt
Oil for frying

Filling

Beginner

1 green onion / scallion (finely sliced green and white)
7 oz / 200g Cabbage (diced ½” / 1cm or smaller)
1 piece / 10g Ginger (peeled, grated)
1 lb / 500g Ground meat
1 teaspoon / 5g Salt
1 tablespoon / 15ml Soy sauce
1 tablespoon / 15ml Sesame oil

Advanced

½ cup / 120ml Cooking oil
1 green onion / scallion (finely sliced green and white)
1 piece / 10g Ginger (peeled, grated)
7 oz / 200g Cabbage (diced ½” / 1cm or smaller)
1 lb / 500g Ground meat
1 teaspoon / 5g Salt
1 tablespoon / 15ml Soy sauce
1 tablespoon / 15ml Sesame oil
1 piece / 10g Ginger (peeled, grated)

How to make Egg rolls

Filling

Beginner

Mix all the ingredients together.

Advanced

In a skillet, heat oil to high then add the onion / scallion then sauté until glassy / translucent look, for 3 – 5 minutes.
Add cabbage. Sauté until the cabbage reduced in size, for about 5 – 10 minutes.
Add the meat, salt, ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil.
Stir-fry until the meat is browned. Take it off heat and let it cool off.

Wrap

Knead flour, water, optional egg and salt until it comes together.
Roll the dough into a ball then halve it.
Seal one of the balls into an airtight container, so it won’t lose moisture, then roll out the other one into an 12″x 17″/ 30cm x 45cm rectangle.
Divide the rolled out sheet into six, preferably equal parts. If we’ve done it right, then we’ll have six pieces of 6″ / 15cm squares.

Assembly

Place about two tablespoons of filling at one corner.
Roll the corner over the filling.
Flip in the side corners to the middle.
Continue rolling the wrap up.
Heat oil to medium to high and place the egg rolls in. Mind to have some space around them for even heat distribution. Once one side get golden brown, turn them over.
Fry the other side until golden brown too. The whole frying should take about 15 minutes with turning the rolls halfway through. Remove from the oil and let it drip before serving.