Tag Archives: home made

Home Made Egg Rolls

We were lucky enough to take a cooking class in Chiang Mai while on vacation in Thailand this fall where we learned to make the elusive Pad Thai my  man craves so much. <– Stay tuned for that recipe. Today we’re going to make a version of the spring rolls we learned to make during that class. I say “version,” because I couldn’t find any “spring roll” wrappers, only “egg roll,” so the filling will be the same, but the outside a little crunchier. Who cares?! I get to use my new deep fryer and that’s really what this is all about, so off we go!

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Garlic, Carrots, Scallions, Bean Sprouts, Tofu, Chicken, Glass Noodles.

Put the water on for the rice noodles to boil then get to chopping! Obviously one would do fine stuffing an egg roll with anything (I’m even thinking a banana-nutella egg roll might hit the spot), but in this case we were really trying to channel those authentic Thai flavors, so I followed the recipe. First heat the oil, then throw in the garlic for a minute, followed by the chicken and tofu for another minute or two. Then throw in the noodles (followed immediately by a tablespoon or two of water), then toss in the other veggies, give it a stir and BAM: easy as that.

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Add fresh cabbage.

Next heap a portion of the mixture into whatever wrapper you are able to find at the market and get to rolling. I added some fresh cabbage to mine for the pretty color 🙂

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Roll it up, paste with egg.

Wrapping these things takes a bit of finesse; I think it’s easiest to roll from the corners, then over roll a bit, tuck in the edges, paste with egg, then roll it on up and paste a little more. The package of wrappers said to use water to make it stick, so if anyone has done that and thinks that’s easier than egg, please let me know! And now for the fun part!

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And fry-eems up!

This Christmas, I requested a deep fryer and was thrilled to receive this amazing and super easy to use compact fryer that fits perfectly in my apartment. Gracias Fajah. I used plain veggie oil to fry as I’ve been told olive oil has too much of its own flavor to properly cook Thai food. I don’t want to brag, but these were pretty delicious:

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Am I right?

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Homemade Crepes

I thought crepes would be incredibly complicated, but they are in fact just milk, flour and eggs! I’m sure there are plenty of other ingredients (i.e. sugar) that some people add to this recipe, but I was taught that one should start at the very beginning (it’s a very good place to start). So I kept it simple:

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1 cup flour, 1 cup milk, 2 eggs, pinch of salt.

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Mix-eems up!

Now came the hard part. I wasted one entire batch of batter attempting to swirl the batter evenly in our cast-iron skillet. The trouble is the batter starts cooking as soon as it hits the pan, so make sure you have a strategy. I didn’t need much butter, just a light greasing of the pan and about 1/3 cup of batter did me just fine. 🙂

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Swirl evenly into pan on med heat.

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It’s definitely a learning curve.

After several tries, I finally found my swirling sweet spot. Hours later, I read that an easy way to make it even is to tilt the pan and pour the batter in on an incline — if anyone has tried this, please let me know if it works!

As soon as the batter starts to bubble, flip-eems around and cook the other side. Afterward you can set them aside until you have as many as you need.

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Chicken Caprese Crepe for my man.

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Heat it up on a warm pan and serve!

When it’s time to build the crepes, turn the pan on very very low and lay your crepe down, throw on your toppings and fold hot-dog, then hamburger (the nineties kids know what I mean).

The time had come to attempt the crepe of all crepes. The one I had placed up so high on a pedestal, I was bound to be disappointed, right? WRONG! I had seen this done so many times, I knew all of the components. I knew the order the ingredients needed to go in and what sorts of dressings topped them. It went crepe, bleu cheese, pears, honey, walnuts, balsamic, then arugula.

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I topped this with black pepper and honey.

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Served with arugula and a balsamic glaze.

And it was delicious! I’ll have to work on my crepe technique, but the integrity of the crepe was there. I considered this a huge victory and I intend to enjoy this for lunch every day this week because me and this crepe? We’re married. What’s your crepe soul-mate?

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