Pork Egg Rolls

My mother-in-law had Seth over at her house last night for a sleep over so Clint and I grabbed some of our favorite ham fried rice from a chinese restaurant and decided to relax at home and watch some episodes of Pysch.  But I'm all about the side dishes.  I can't just eat ham fried rice.  I need little appetizers to go along with my meal.  So I whipped up these pork egg rolls in just a few minutes to eat as well.

Pork Egg Rolls

Ingredients:

1/4 c. soy sauce

2 T. rice vinegar

1 T. light brown sugar

6 c. vegetable oil

1 napa cabbage (about 2 1/2 pounds), thinly sliced
4 medium carrots, coarsley grated
4 garlic cloves, minced

1 T. grated fresh ginger

coarse salt and ground pepper

6 scallions, thinly sliced

16 egg roll wrappersn (6-7 inches square)

1 large egg, lightly beaten

bottled sweet and sour sauce and spicy mustard, for serving

Directions:

In a small bowl, combine soy sauce, vinegar, and sugar.  In a large skillet, heat 1 T oil over med-high heat.  Add cabbage, carrots, garlic, and ginger; season with salt and pepper.  Cook, tossing, until vegetables are tender, 3-5 minutes. 

Raise heat to high; add pork and soy mixture.  Cook tossing , until pork is no longer pink and liquid has evaporated, 5-7 minutes.  Mix in scallions.  Transfer mixture to a plate to cool.  Lay wrappers flat on a work surface, Place 1/3 c. pork mixture in the center of each egg roll wrapper.  Using a pastry brush, wet border of wrapper with egg.  Fold point of wrapper that's closest to you over the pork mixture and tuck under the filling.  Fold both side corners in toward the center of the wrapper.  (It should look like an open envelope.)  Tightly roll up filled pocket to close wrapper, then gently press down to seal edges. 
In a 5 quart pot, heat remaining oil until a deep-fry thermometer registers 350 degrees.  Working in batches of 4, and returning oil to 350 degrees for each batch, fry egg rolls until golden, turning occasionally, about 2 minutes.  Drain on paper towels.  Serve with sweet and sour sauce and spicy mustard.

In my test kitchen:

Having never really worked with cabbage before, I bought a pre-packaged bag of sliced cabbage for this recipe.  Worked out great.  I also sort of eyeballed the amount of cabbage I put in the skillet and I don't think I really used enough.  By the time I realized this, I felt that it was a little too late to add more cabbage to the mixture.
I didn't have fresh ginger on hand so I used the powder.  (I just recently learned that dried spices are actually stronger in taste than fresh spices so I used 1/2 the amount called for in the recipe.)
I also saved myself the trouble and used a deep fryer to cook these rather than heat oil on the stove.

So as I'm typing this recipe out, I am asking myself, "what didn't I like about this recipe?"  Clint really liked it but I didn't love love it.  I realized that it may be because I used ground pork sausage as opposed to just ground pork.  Is there a difference?  I'm not sure so I'm going to check out the meat section next time I go grocery shopping.  I don't know, for some reason Clint just loves pork sausage in won tons or these egg rolls but it just doesn't taste as "chinese-y" to me.  Does that make any sense? 

Still, it was a good first attempt.

~Happy Cooking!