Baked Egg Rolls

I'm not big on frying food. Call me weird, but to me deep frying (or even shallow frying) seems a bit like inviting the reaper for dinner. Cheese, I obviously have no problem with. But I digress...

Anyway, given the frying phobia, I was excited to find a recipe for baked egg rolls in the February 2006 Vegetarian Times, which I tried today. How were they? They definitely tasted baked and not fried. They were a little dry, but, once you dipped them in soy sauce or Sriracha hot chili sauce, they really were awfully good. If you love egg rolls but need to go low fat, this is a nice tasty recipe.

The original recipe was for Mini Egg Rolls with Hot Mustard Sauce. I used Azumaya large square wrappers rather than the little won ton skins the original recipe called for. The recipe made eight of these larger egg rolls (vs. 26 won ton size). Using the larger size also meant less fiddling around and worrying about the first rolls drying out while the others were being wrapped. I changed the ingredients by substituting arrowroot for cornstarch, doubling the peanuts and ginger, and dropping the water chestnuts.

My larger egg rolls were also cooked in my oven in 15 minutes (vs 20 minutes in original recipe).

Here's my adapted recipe:
1 tsp arrowroot
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp rice vinegar
1/2 small napa cabbage, chopped
I large carrot, shredded
1 tsp arrowroot
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp ginger, finely chopped
1 cup edamame (shelled)
1/4 cup chopped peanuts
2 tsp toasted sesame oil
1 egg, beaten
8-10 large square egg roll pasta wrappers
cooking spray

Whisk together the arrowroot, soy sauce, and rice vinegar in a small bowl and set aside. Preheat your oven to 425. Spray non-stick skillet with cooking spray and cook cabbage and carrot gently for about five minutes until cabbage is softens. Add the garlic, ginger, edamame, peanuts, and sesame oil and cook 3 additional minutes. Add arrowroot/soy mix and cook two more minutes, until thickened. Cool for about 15 minutes.

Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray and put into the oven for a few minutes (while you assemble, but not if that's going to take a long time!)

To assemble, place wrappers so a corner is at the bottom (a diamond rather than a square). Brush the top corner with beaten egg. Place 2-3 spoonfuls of the cabbage mixture in the center of the wrapper, fold up the bottom corner and sides around the mixture and then roll up to top corner.

Place egg rolls seam side down on the preheated baking sheet and spray egg rolls with a little cooking spray. Bake for 6-7 minutes and then turn and bake additional 6-7 minutes until light brown.

Serve with soy sauce and/or Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce.

FOOD + VEGETARIAN+COOKING