Thursday, September 10, 2009

Pork Egg Rolls in Broth

I'm going to warn you now. This is one helluva time-consuming recipe, but highly suited to being made in large amounts for dinner parties and the likes of that.

I recently visited Shanghai Nights in Ashfield and tried their egg wontons. It was scrump-diddly-umptious to say the least, and it wasn't long before I was dying to do my own little rendition of it.

Let's just cut to the chase shall we?

First you'll need to crack about a half dozen eggs.

Add 1/2 teaspoon of chicken powder. This is the only flavouring that will go into the eggs, so make sure you do it. If you're wary about using chicken powder then by all means use salt or light soy sauce, except the latter will change the colour of the wrappers from a bright yellow to a dull browny colour.

Next give the eggs a quick whisk.

Add a teaspoon of corn flour to the mix. This will stop the egg wrappers from breaking up when you're trying to fold them into shape. Whisk and make sure you break up the lumps of corn flour.

Next add a tablespoon of water. I don't know why. My instinct told me to.

In a hot pan, proceed to pour the mixture in as you would when you make pancakes. Essentially this part is just like making crepes, except the batter is much thinner and prone to breakage. In other words, be gentle when you flip!

When the wrappers are cooked, drain them well on paper towels, making sure you lay a piece of paper towel between each layer so they don't cook each other and then mold themselves into one another. I hate how eggs like to cuddle themselves.

Once you've finished the mixture, leave the wrappers aside to cool while you make the stuffing. I made about 6, only because I wanted the rolls to be quite large. Feel free to go miniature.

You'll need about 200~250 pork mince. And a food processor.

Look. If you don't have a food processor then you're just going to have to buy one. Or chop the stuff up manually, but you won't get the same elastickkkkkky texture to the stuffing - or as Asians would describe it - the Q factor.

Nah I'm just kidding. Manually chopping is fine.

You'll need about a cup of diced Green (or as the bag tells me, King) prawns. Whether it's Green or not doesn't really matter. Just don't use stuff that's too mushy.

A cup of bamboo shoots.

A cup of black fungus. (Yes I know I rehydrated about a tonne. Just fridge the leftovers)

And a small knob of ginger. It's in the picture somewhere. Add about a teaspoon of chicken powder, 3~4 tablespoons of light soy for steaming (Lee Kum Kee), or just plain light soy.

Best to add 1/2 tablespoon of sesame oil as well.

Put the lid onto the food processor and give it a good whizz.

Once all the components come together, crack an egg into the mixture.

Proceed to whizz it some more until the egg is combined with everything else. You might need to give it a little scrape on the side once in a while.

Once it is done, grab the cooled egg wrappers and proceed to spoon a little of the stuffing onto the centre in a log shape. Don't overfill or the wrappers will burst.
Wrap it up as you would with a spring roll, then place the roll onto a plate ready for steaming.

Rinse and repeat until all egg wrappers are used up. The remaining stuffing can be rolled into balls and steamed as meatballs or used as Wonton stuffing.

Place the plate in a steamer (or a wok with a metal stand placed in the centre like mine) and steam for about 20 minutes, depending on the size of your rolls. You'll also need to drain the liquid that gathers in the plate after steaming.

Once the rolls are done, boil about 250mL of chicken stock (Campbell's Real Stock is fine) with 4 tablespoons of oyster sauce. Stir vigorously to combine. In a separate bowl combine a cup of water with a tablespoon of corn starch and stir until corn starch is suspended in water. Pour into the chicken broth and let the mixture thicken. Stir well so no lumps form.

Garnish plate with steamed bok choy/choy sum/anything you fancy. Pour broth over everything and serve.


Pork Egg Rolls in Broth
Makes 6 Egg Rolls

Buy:
Egg wrappers
  • 6 Eggs, lightly whisked
  • 1/2 tsp Chicken Powder
  • 1 tblsp Water
  • 1 tsp Corn Starch
  • Oil for frying
Stuffing
  • 200g Pork Mince
  • 1 Egg
  • 1 cup Bamboo Shoots
  • 1 cup Black Fungus
  • 1 cup Green Prawns, diced
  • 1 knob of Ginger
  • 3~4 tblsp Light Soy for Steaming/Plain Light Soy
  • 1/2 tblsp Sesame Oil
Broth
  • 250mL Chicken Stock
  • 4 tblsp Oyster Sauce
  • 1 cup Water
  • 1 tblsp Corn Starch
Steamed Bok choy to garnish

Make:
  1. Whisk eggs with chicken powder
  2. Add corn starch and water and whisk until well combined
  3. In a pan, slowly pour mixture to fry as you would with crepes
  4. Remove from pan and drain well on paper towel. Repeat until all mixture is used up
  5. Set wrappers aside and cool
  6. In a food processor, add all stuffing ingredients except egg and whizz until combined.
  7. Add egg and whizz until mixed thoroughly
  8. Take one egg wrapper and place on flat surface. Spoon enough stuffing mixture onto the centre so that it creates a small log shape. Leave enough space on the edges for folding.
  9. Fold in the sides of the wrappers, and place wrapped roll onto plate with the opening on the bottom.
  10. Repeat until all wrappers are used up.
  11. Place plate in steamer for 20 minutes and once cooked, remove plate from steamer and drain all liquid in plate. Place steamed bok choy on side of plate
  12. In a wok or pan, cook stock with oyster sauce
  13. In a separate bowl, combine water with corn starch until corn starch is evenly suspended
  14. Pour corn starch mix into wok and bring to boil
  15. Once the broth has thickened, pour over egg rolls and bok choy
  16. Serve with rice

No comments:

Post a Comment