Baked Egg Rolls

The other night I had an intense craving for an egg roll. Weird, considering the last time I ordered Chinese food was about 4 years ago. I am more of a Japanese food fan - less fat and deep-frying. I never feel that awesome after having Chinese food - the food sits in my stomach like a lead weight. P.F. Chang's doesn't count because it is delicious. Anyway, back to the egg roll craving - I satisfied that with some good old home cooking.

I did a little research online and found a healthier version of egg rolls made with ground turkey and veggies and then baked, not fried. I adapted this recipe from Cooking Light and boy am I glad I did! You don't miss the deep-fried taste at all... so much less grease! The taste difference between your typical pork egg roll and the turkey meat is minimum, but you can swap that out if you'd like.

You'll like this blog post if you like pictures - I went a little camera crazy HEHE

Egg Roll Ingredients:
3/4 cup shredded carrot
2 cups shredded cabbage
1/2 tsp vegetable oil
2/3 cup chopped shallots
1/3 cup chopped green onions
1/2 tsp minced peeled fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 lb ground turkey breast
1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp black pepper
14 egg roll wrappers
1 large egg beaten with 1 tbsp water
Cooking Spray 

Sauce Ingredients:
1/3 cup soy sauce
3 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp sesame oil
1/2 tbsp minced peeled fresh ginger
1/3 cup thinly sliced green onions

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Combine shredded carrot, cabbage and green onions in a medium bowl. Microwave on high for 4 minutes.

Heat vegetable oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add shallots, ginger and garlic; saute 3-4 minutes. Add turkey; cook 5 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in cabbage mixture, 1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce and pepper. Chill 15 minutes.

Place 1 egg roll wrapper at a time onto work surface with 1 corner pointing toward you (wrapper should look like a diamond). Trim 1 inch off right and left corners of wrapper. Spoon 3 tablespoons turkey filling into center of wrapper.

Fold lower corner of egg roll wrapper over filling. Fold in trimmed corners.

Moisten top corner of wrapper with egg wash; roll up jelly-roll fashion.

Repeat procedure with remaining wrappers, turkey filling and egg wash.

Lightly coat egg rolls with cooking spray, and place, seam side down, on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Bake at 425 degrees for 18-22 minutes or until golden brown.

To prepare sauce, combine soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, ginger and sliced green onions; serve with egg rolls. You can also serve this with prepared sweet and sour sauce. The sauce I made myself I liked a lot - it was a great combination of your typical Asian flavors. It was also fun to dip the egg rolls in and pick up pieces of ginger or green onions on the way to your mouth!

You'll notice that there are a few different ingredient combinations in these egg rolls. The cabbage was really the only traditional ingredient in there. I changed the written recipe to include shallots and green onions in the filling which I thought gave it a nice mellow onion flavor. To round out the dinner, I made some fried rice to go alongside. All in all, my egg roll craving was satisfied!

Tutti Mangia!