Baked Eggrolls

Happy Chinese  New Years!

I was invited to a traditional hot pot Chinese New Year in celebration of Chinese New Years yesterday, and made baked Egg rolls. Hot pots are good, and I think most of you would enjoy them... I will post a pic at the bottom so you can see what it is like :)

I took the recipe and based it off a few different recipes.... and this is what I did

• 2 cloves of garlic
• equal size pieces of ginger
• 1/8 of a purple onion

• 2 cups cooked chicken shredded and cut up into small pieces
• 2 cups cabbage shredded
• 2 cup carrots grated 
• 2 green onions sliced
• 1 cup bean sprouts

• 3 Tablespoons vegetable oil for sautéing
• Cooking spray
• 16 egg roll wrappers
• 4 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1 Tablespoon water
• 1 Tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 Tablespoon rice vinegar
• 1 egg white beaten

(other things that can be added: 

• 1 small can canned water chestnuts
• 2 green onions sliced instead of the purple onion
• fresh sweet red pepers

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400˚ and lightly coat a baking sheet with cooking spray.
   
   
2. In a large pan, heat the 3 T. vegetable oil, garlic, ginger, and onion over medium heat. 
   
   
   Add cooked chicken and vegetables and saute for about 5 minutes or until vegetables start to soften. Depending on salt levels of soy sauce used, add a little to mixture, I also added some cracked black pepper.
   
   
   In the meantime, in a small bowl, whisk together cornstarch, water, soy sauce, vegetable oil, and rice vinegar. Add sauce mixture to pot. Cook 2-3 minutes longer. Remove from heat and let slightly cool.
   
   
3. Open egg roll wrappers and keep covered with a damp paper towel while working with them, they tend to dry out quickly. Place wrapper at a diamond shape on your workspace (1 corner pointing toward you). Add 1/3 cup of veggie mixture in the middle of wrapper. Fold side corners in to meet in the middle. Pull bottom corner up over the side corners. 
   
   
   (*** I did not use the egg, just water, like we did as kids :)Moisten top corner with beaten egg white and continue to roll up wrapper (try to keep the roll tight). Repeat will all remaining egg roll wrappers.
   
   
4. Place egg rolls seam side down on prepared baking sheet. When finished, lightly spray the tops of the egg rolls with cooking spray. Bake for 6 minutes, turn egg rolls over and continue baking an additional 6 minutes or until browned.
   
   
   ** Mine took at least ten minutes longer to bake**
   Adapted from following recipe: https://happymoneysaver.com/baked-egg-roll-recipe/
   
   
   Hot pots: (see egg rolls behind hot pots :)
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Sweet and Sour Sauce

 Mom was pretty sick yesterday, so I offered to make dinner. I was in the mood for something different, and remembered we had the left over pork roast, so I tried to think of what would be good to do with the left overs... and this is what I came up with... but of course I changed the recipe.... here is the original, with changes at the end in italics. My goal was to find a recipe that did not use corn syrup or catsup in it, one that was relatively clean...

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon peeled and grated fresh ginger
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup pineapple or orange juice
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar

• 1 heaping tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch blended with 2 tablespoons cold water

Directions

Heat a wok or saucepan over high heat and add the oil. When the oil is hot, add the ginger and garlic. Stir-fry just until fragrant, and then add the juice, vinegar, brown sugar and soy sauce. Bring to a boil and cook until the sugar has dissolved. Stir in the cornstarch and water mixture and cook until thickened, about 1 minute. Stir into any nearly completed stir-fry dish and bring to a boil until the sauce thickens, about 1 minute.
Click here for Web site.

* I more then doubled the recipe by adding and making the following changes:

• 2 T oil
• 2 T of fresh ginger
• 4 cloves of garlic (some about half were small, and half were bigger)
• 1 cup of pineapple juice
• 1 cup of pear juice (from canned pears in the refrigerator)
• 1 1/2 cups of water
• 3+ T of soy sauce
• Instead of another cup of pineapple juice, I added 1 cup of juice from the pairs.
• 4 T vinegar -- mom did no have rice vinegar
• 2 T brown sugar

*I started as directed with the ginger and the garlic in the oil, then added my juices, brown sugar, 2 T of soy sauce, and vinegar.

*It tasted super sweet and vinegary , so I added more soy sauce and water (trying stretch the sauce anyways) and when I added the onion, it finally started to taste better. 

*After creating the sauce initially, I sliced some onions up, tossing them in and added the meat for a bit, letting them simmer together. 

 *Next I added a yellow & an orange pepper, but tried to not let them over cook. 

*I did thicken the sauce twice also, once after adding the normal proportions, but when I stretched it with water as I was adding the onions, it seemed to get too liquidy again, so made the cornstarch/water mixture again, and added it for a minute or two to the boiling sauce before taking it off the heat and serving it.

*Served over baked white rice.