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
    

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.
    

Request Line - SJ

Disclaimer: I'm technically not meant to be cooking+blogging, but I need a bit of de-stressing which only cooking will provide.

Aaah, the classic stir fry. How many times have I failed thee.

It seriously took my father years before he worked out the secret to making a good stir fry. For a while, every dish he made would either have overcooked beef which was tough and chewy, or undercooked vegies which were dull in flavour and colour.

And then one night, sometime during his late 30's, it suddenly occurred to him that there was a vital step to this whole stir-fry bizzo which we didn't know about.

Steaming.

The idea works the same way as parboiling your potatoes before you bake them. Except you parsteam your vegies before you throw it into your stirfry so you don't end up with undercooked vegies. This is homecooking we're talking about, so don't start telling me about how they do it differently in the restaurants. Most homes simply don't have enough flame to heat the wok hot enough to cook the vegies through before the meat simply dries up and dies.

And yes, I equate badly cooked meat with killing the animal a second time round. Please, please don't do it. The animal deserves a dignified path to the next part of its life.

Another key to good stirfrying is knowing the order to cook everything in. Because of the speed of everything, once you throw your first piece in, you really don't have much time to think about what should go in first or what not. It has to be done right, straight away.

So how does it all work?

Things which will withstand a fair bit of cooking - try and get these in the pan first:

• Dried and reconstituted mushrooms. (These buggers don't seem to die in the pan and will retain its shape even after HOURS of cooking.)
• Firm tofu, tofu sponges, deep fried tofu (soft tofu will retain its shape, but it will release a LOT of liquid during the cooking process, and even after the cooking has been done - so try not to use them for stirfrying purposes)
• Black fungus
• Dried shrimp
• Ginger
• Chicken (unless you're really really slow at getting the ingredients in the pan)
• Onions

Things which require pre-cooking:

• Un-bicarbed meat (if you don't use bicarb during the marinating process, make sure you give the meat a quick fry until its NEARLY cooked, take it out of the wok, and rest aside until all the other ingredients are cooked, then just throw everything together in the wok.)
• Vegetables (as I said before, steam, then throw into wok at the end.)

Things which can't stay in the pan for long:

• Beef
• Pork
• Prawns
  

I thank my father for discovering the procedure in his 30s so that I didn't have to.


Classic Pork Stirfry Cheat guide
Serves: the family

Buy:
1 tblsp Mushroom Dark Soy Sauce
1/2 tsp Sugar
1/8 tsp MSG (optional)
1/2 tsp Bicarb Soda (optional)
1 tblsp Oil
Oyster sauce, to taste

2 Small Sticks of Choy (any type will work)
250g Pork Fillet, sliced thinly
1 clove Garlic, crushed
1/2 chopped onion
5 Shittake Mushrooms, reconstituted and chopped in half
a handful of Black Fungus
Oil to cook

Marinate:

1. Combine pork fillet, bicarb soda, tablespoon oil, MSG, sugar and mushroom dark soy together, making sure every piece of the pork is nicely coated
2. Leave aside for 5-20mins

Cook:

1. Steam choy for 3mins, or until choy is brightly coloured
2. Remove from steamer and set aside
3. In a wok, heat oil until almost smoking, add black fungus and shittake mushroom and stirfry for about 2 minutes. (Please be careful, this stage the wok will spatter out a lot of oil.)
4. Add onions and garlic and toss around for another minute or two.
   
5. Throw in marinated pork and add roughly 2~3 tablespoons of oyster sauce (or to taste)
6. Stir fry for about 3minutes, or until pork is cooked
7. Throw in steam choy and turn off heat. Toss everything around so the vegetables are nicely coated in the sauce, and serve straight away. If you leave it in the wok the vegetables will keep cooking and turn yellow.

Nom it good with a bit of rice.