Fried things...

So, we are trying to fit all of our "junk foods" in before we go back to healthier eating.  Saturday we ordered a pizza, tonight we will be making cream chipped beef on toast, that means that last night-- Sunday night was meant for fried food.  Spring Rolls are beloved at our house-- so that's what we went for.  We really used the things we had around and left out a bunch of yummy things we just didn't have (like bean sprouts which would've been a nice addition).  So - this adapted recipe is really ours at this point, since we stole from at least four different spring roll recipes and two separate cuisines (Thai and Vietnamese)

Spring Rolls
Ingredients:
2/3 cup onion finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic minced
1 lb ground chicken (we actually ground our own since the market didn't have any already ground)
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups of diced mushrooms (any kind you like.  We've used wild mushrooms, button, or baby bellas)
3/4 cups of grated carrots
1 cup of softened noodles
(follow the directions of the package to soften-- it can take from 2 minutes to 12 depending on noodle type--we used a mix of glass or mung bean noodles and vermicelli noodles)
3 T Oyster sauce
1 T Soy Sauce
1 teaspoon Fish Sauce (all the recipes we have call for more-- but we like oyster sauce better)
2-4 T. of Olive Oil
A drizzle of sesame oil if you have it.
A small bottle of canola oil or peanut oil to fry in.
pepper
2 T. flour
3-4 T. water
Spring roll wrappers
Sweet Chili sauce, honey or marmalade for dipping


Prepare:

I chose to begin by adding some of the oil (2 tablespoons or so) and the mushrooms to a skillet and cooking the mushrooms until they were partly done (cooked down a little bit, and a little darker in color)...you could just leave them raw and mix immediately with carrots, noodles and "sauces", but we like our mushrooms to be "really done".

So take mushrooms either cooked or raw and place in a medium size bowl.   Add to that same bowl the carrots, softened noodles (cut with scissors into 1 inch lengths) oyster sauce, soy sauce, fish sauce and pepper to taste.  Mix that all together.

Take a large skillet and add approx. 2 T. of Olive oil  and onions.  Cook until they started to caramelize, then throw in the garlic and ground chicken and cook the chicken until almost completely cooked.  Move the chicken and onion mixture to the sides of the pan, cracked 2 eggs into the middle of the pan and scrambled them up with a spatula in the pan, then mixed it all in with the chicken. Then add the mixture of mushrooms, carrots, noodles and "stuff" into the skillet.  I drizzled a little sesame oil across the top of this while it cooked because I love sesame oil, but a little bit goes a long way- so be careful and light handed if you use this.  Cook for about 4 minutes until everything is combined well and mushrooms finish cooking.  Remove from heat and let it cool a little.

When the mixture is cool enough to handle, mix together a few tablespoons of flour with a few tablespoons of water to form a slurry that will work as a "glue" to hold together your spring rolls.

Rolling:

 Cut the wrappers in half diagonally. You will have two equal triangles. Starting with the longest side toward you, place about 2 tablespoons of filling on the bottom area of the triangle. Using your fingers, mold the filling into a cylinder 2 inches long and 1 inch wide. Fold the two pointed ends of the wrapper in and roll to enclose. Dab a little flour mixture along the edges (do not use too much "glue") and seal the roll. Set aside while you finish making the remaining rolls.

To fry, preheat a large wok or fry pan. When hot, pour enough oil in to completely cover the spring rolls. Heat to about 325 degrees. Carefully place the rolls into the oil. Do not crowd the pan or place the rolls on top of each other. Fry the spring rolls until filling is cooked, about 5 to 6 minutes on each side, turning often until they are nicely brown and crisp. If they brown too quickly, reduce the heat as the oil is too hot. Remove the cooked spring rolls from the pan and drain on paper towels. Serve immediately.

We served ours with two choices for dipping - orange marmalade (which we heated for 20 seconds in the microwave to make it runny) for the kids.  And sweet chili dipping sauce (store bought) for the grown ups.  So fried, so delicious!  And even our picky non-mushroom eater had some.  He likes Thai and Vietnamese flavors, and they pretty much hide the flavor of mushrooms. So this was a clear win.  Yummy fried things!