Cooking with Dr. Monkey

I like Asian food as some of you may have guessed by now. I like it because it is flavorful and can be made in a low fat/low salt way. While one component of the meal I made last night for supper was deep fried in in our wok, it was still very low in fat.

So kids, strap on whatever you need to strap on and let's cook homemade egg rolls!

I started off by sauteing about three cups of Napa cabbage, I like it because it is light and flavorful, some sweet red Cuban pepper, a small orange bell pepper, one portabella mushroom cap, a little less than one third cup onion, some fresh green beans cut into small pieces, three cloves of garlic, and one finely chopped up boneless pork chop. I sauteed all that in a little bit of water to which I added a tablespoon of soy sauce and a teaspoon of Thai fish sauce.

After the mixture had cooked up for a bit I got my egg roil wraps out, I use the store bought kind, and I whisked an egg in a small bowl. I laid one of my wraps on my cutting board.

I then put some finely sliced raw daikon radish in my mixture, then I added about a tablespoon and a half of my pork cabbage mixture and I put it in the center of the wrap. Then I dabbed a little raw egg on the four corners of the wrap.

I brought the bottom corner of the wrap up and I tucked it in over top of the pork mixture.

Then I brought the two sides in and I joined them over top of the first fold of the wrap. and I dabbed a bit of egg on top of that to make sure it stayed.
Then I rolled it up tightly, don't roll it too tightly though or the mixture will break through the wrap. If you've done it right, it should look something like this. If you break a few on your first tries don't worry, it takes practice to get it right.

Then I rolled up the rest of the mixture and as you can see I ended up with ten egg rolls.

I put about 2/3 cup of canola oil in the wok. After the oil got hot I added some of the egg rolls. Since the mixture inside them is already cooked they don't need to stay in the oil very long. I usually just let them get golden brown before I take them out of the hot oil and lay them on some paper towel to drain off some of the excess oil.

While my egg rolls were frying in the wok I had put on my rice and sliced two green onions. When the rice was done I mixed in the green onions and let it sit for a bit.

And this is what supper looked like here at el Casa de Monkey last night. Yes, I also drank that Rolling Rock beer while I cooked and let me tell you it was damn good. I served this with a dash of wasabi on the plates and with two sauces on the side, one sauce was a sweet ginger chili sauce and the other was peanut sauce.

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Feel free to add whatever meat you like in your version, be it shrimp or chicken, or even beef if you like, or none at all if you so desire. And also add whatever other veggies you like in the mixture. And add whatever other spices you like, like salt or red hot pepper. Take the recipe and make it your own.