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
    

Meals of Love - Blue Mountains

Ok, I'm very backlogged in posts. This is the year where all my friends (and myself included) are turning 21, so I ask that you just all bear with me while the posts trickle through in what little time I have in front of the laptop between drinks, dining, studying, working, and heavy sleep deprivation.I don't really have accurate recipes for any of the following things we made up in the Blue Mountains. Things just got too difficult to record as we all worked on individual elements of the dish and just combined everything at the end. Hopefully the photos will make enough sense to provide some sort of inspiration for experimentation.

Menu for the night:

Entree: Broccoli and Carrot Cream Soup with Toast
Main: Spaghetti with Chicken and Grilled Vegetables
Dessert: Icecream with Oranges and Strawberries (Maple Syrup may have gotten involved)
Cocktail: Pina Colada
We had our work cut out for us that night, but the great thing about cooking with friends is that you don't feel the effort that goes into making a huge meal because half the time you're just chatting and oohing and aahing at all the strange concoctions people come up with.

It's also good fun to get the boys to do some work around the house.

I got to work on deboning the chicken. The legs would go into the soup for the stock base, while the meat was going into the main course.With the meat, I marinaded it with some olive oil, salt and pepper. I wish I could lug my entire kitchen with me when I go on trips, but alas, a travel-sized kitchen-in-a-box does not yet exist.

The bones went into the stock which contained carrots, broccoli and large sticks of celery. We chucked the celery in because we had to use them up, so we just left them in huge pieces so we could pull them out later before we pureed everything. Oh and we ate them. Girls like their vegies.
AL focused on cutting up all the vegies for the grill. They were pretty. And yummy too.Right before we popped the grill pan into the grill, we realised we had forgotten the parsley, so we sent VH on a mission to finely chop some parsley.

While we're here I would like to just complain about how blunt all the knives are at every single holiday house we've ever been to. Gosh. Is a sharp knife in the kitchen just too much to ask for? Surprisingly at this house there wasn't even a knife sharpener available, so I just used my dad's ad hoc method of using the bottom of a ceramic bowl as the sharpener. It works wonders.

Finally the parsley goes on top.

AL mixed the vegies with what I would presume to be clean hands. She drizzled the pan with a little olive oil and seasoned with a little salt and pepper.Finally the pan goes in for grilling.

While all that was happening, I got to work on browning the chicken in a thick-bottomed pan. The smell eminating from the kitchen with all that was happening was really inviting to say the least.After the chicken was browned, the same pan was used to cook the garlic, onions, tomatoes, canned tomatoes, stock and tomato paste. We just let the sauce simmer away and thicken slightly.If I remember correctly, while all this was happening, we were running back and forth from the kitchen to the lounge room to watch MasterChef. Gosh, that show nearly destroyed me. I couldn't bare to miss a single episode.

Either way, at some point during that show, AL remembered the vegies in the grill and ran back to save them. Timing-wise, I think it was spot on as the vegies were grilled to perfection.We then added the grilled vegetables and chicken into the tomato sauce and heated everything through. Dinner was almost ready.

I think at this point VH was on the side mashing the broccoli and carrot soup and combining it with a tub of cream. Why mashing? Because we didn't think to check whether there was a blender available. This is why we need the portable kitchen-in-a-box!

Someone smart go invent it already. Chop chop!

Either way the soup was delicious. We made plenty so we had some for breakfast the next day. Usually people complain about having to eat leftovers the next day, but this soup was an exception. I think JL would have drank it from the pot.

We topped the sauce with a little more parsley. Yes, parsley is our friend.*mutters* Excuse the lighting issue, but VOILA!

How beautiful does it look?

Shrimp Paste Fried Rice

I love shrimp paste.

I love shrimp paste.

I love shrimp paste.


And I think I've made my point. I'll get on with the rest of the post now.

Oh, and before I start:SHRIMP PASTE!

When I was young I used to hate shrimp paste. I blame it on the fact that my mother used it as liberally as any child would with Nutella.

Anyone who has ever come anywhere near shrimp paste would know that it was NEVER meant to be spread like Nutella. I think if it weren't for my rebellish side and my perchant to throw out anything I disliked in my lunchbox, my innards would have been well and truly cured by now.

Luckily I fell in love with shrimp paste fried rice, credits to the overabundance of Thai food around Sydney. Not that I'm complaining.

It's a wonderfully versatile dish, especially good if you're scratching your brains as to what to do with leftover rice. Or if you're like me, then you just deliberately cook to much rice the previous night so that you get an excuse to use the shrimp paste sitting in the fridge.

Apart from the day-old rice, the cast of characters involves eggs, spring onions and coriander.And any meat available (I sliced some braised pork belly that my father made, but could just use any sort of marinade meat).


And ginger. Just a little.And then some peas and corns.

And some diced pineapples. I love pineapples. If you have the fresh stuff, good for you. But I didn't, so I used canned. Forgive me.

Fry up the shrimp paste with a little oil and ginger until fragrant. Take a big whiff and enjoy the fishy goodness.

Some people would run a mile just to get away from this smell. Others would just get high off it. I think I belong in the latter category.

Add the rice and meat and give it a good toss around. Don't beat the rice up too much or you'll break the grains. If your meat is raw then cook the meat first before throwing it in.
Add the egg and peas, and give it a good toss around once again.

Don't start me on how real Asians don't add peas and corn in their fried rice. This is my cooking, I add what I like. Feel free to do it your own way. That's part of the joy of cooking!

Next add the pineapple. Feel free to caramelise it in another pan before adding it to the fried rice. I was in a rush so I skipped that part.

Please add pineapple. Shrimp paste and pineapples generate R rated results. Failproof.

Next, turn the heat down completely and throw in the coriander and spring onions and toss through. Turn off heat and serve.

Shoo! Now go make this and enjoy it!

Shrimp Paste Fried Rice
Serves: 1

Buy:
2 Eggs
1/2 tsp Chicken Powder
5 sprigs Coriander, finely chopped
1/2 stalk Spring Onion, finely chopped
4 thin juliennes Ginger
1/4 cup frozen Peas and Corn
2 slices Pineapple, diced
1 tsp Shrimp Paste
1/4 cup Pork, chopped
1 bowl Leftover rice. (Just add however much you can eat)

Cook:

1. Beat eggs with chicken powder and fry in a pan until just cooked. Set aside.
2. Grill or fry pineapple pieces until caramelised, set aside
   
3. Add oil to pan and fry shrimp paste with ginger, until fragrant
4. If you have raw pork, then add raw pork and fry until cooked. Otherwise add rice and cooked pork together and toss until rice is well coated with paste
5. Add peas and corn and fried eggs and break up egg through the rice
6. Add pineapple and toss through rice.
7. Turn heat to low and add spring onions and coriander. Toss through and turn off heat.
8. Serve in a bowl topped with more spring onions and coriander.
9. Do yourself a favour and make yourself some pina colada while you're at it.
10. Cheers.