Reflections - Wrap and Roll: Rollicking Recipes 

Project Complete

DASH OF INSPIRATION

INGREDIENTS

The Spark. On the evening of MLK Day, I settled at my secretary desk and signed into Google’s equivalent of ZOOM for a writing session with Maggie. Her yawn and satisfied smile greeted me. I asked, “Did you just wake up? Do you want to go back to sleep?”

Her face glowed. “No, Adam found an egg roll recipe online and made them for dinner. They were delicious. I ate so many I got sleepy and napped.” She shook herself. “Adam woke me for the meeting. I’m good.”

STEPS 

Fan the spark. Egg rolls? When Spence and I were first married, we lived a block from a Chinese restaurant. Many nights we opted for Chinese take out—always with egg rolls.

 

Ninja with JW's Reflection

ASSEMBLE ESSENTIALS 

 

INGREDIENTS

Air Fryer. 

Egg Roll Wrappers.

Recipe. 

STEPS 

1. Hunt for the air fryer. I envisioned healthy, not greasy egg rolls. Tuesday, eating breakfast at the kitchen table with Spence, I searched for air fryers on my laptop, found a Good Housekeeping list, and selected two. “What do you think, Spence?” I swiveled the computer screen around for him.

He waved the screen away. “Ask Charlie. He’s researched them.” Spence glanced around the kitchen. “Where will we put it? Move the water cooler to the basement?”

“NO! I use the water from the cooler all the time.” Why does one solution create another problem? 

2. Buy. Charlie settled in for lunch after work at UPS Wednesday. I showed him my choices. He didn’t hesitate. “Get the Ninja. It’s a known brand. The small one is a toy.”

“You’ll help with the egg roll project on your vacation next week?”

“Su-u-ure.” 

3. Prep to cook wrappers. Charlie cooked his lunch concoction then scanned wrap recipes on his tablet. “Chefs specify nonstick fry pans or woks.”

We only had cast iron skillets. I searched Amazon at the kitchen table, again, picked out a wok, and totaled the order with the air fryer—nearly two hundred dollars! “Whoa. Too expensive for a recipe adventure, Charlie.”

He pursed his lips. “We’ll manage with the ten-inch cast iron skillet. It’s smooth enough.”

4. Substitute alternatives. Thursday Charlie came home late. He pulled two flat packages out of his canvas shopping bag. “I found these at Giant Eagle.”

I studied the thin, eight-inch square packages. “They're spring roll wrappers. Can we make egg rolls with them?”

He nodded and slipped out of his shoes. “One of the egg roll recipes said to use spring rolls.”

A couple hours later, Spence called from Cleveland on his mission to make homes lead safe. “Got ‘em.”

“Got what?”

“I went to Asia Plaza. A nice lady led me to the egg roll wrappers. She said ‘Keep them frozen.’ No problem today because the temperature’s in the twenties. I tucked them in a cubby in the truck bed.”

6. Squeeze in the Ninja. Charlie burst into the house Friday at lunchtime hefting a carton a third his bulk—the air fryer had arrived via UPS. The chubby Ninja challenged our counter space.

Saturday after breakfast, we rearranged the kitchen clutter. Charlie had his say. I had mine. Spence made the final decision. The shiny new Ninja, or robot as Spence called it, sat at the corner of the counter displacing an inconvenient covered garbage container.

7. Tweak recipes. With three adults, two with diet issues, and all with decided preferences, I wanted a recipe we could all consume safely. Saturday afternoon while wind blew snow past the sliding glass doors, Charlie and I sat in the cozy kitchen and debated between two recipes. Erin Clarke’s healthy egg rolls gave simple ingredients, marinated the meat, and used the default temperature the instruction booklet for air fryer suggested. But she didn’t list the amounts. Justin Sullivan’s recipe did. Flipping tabs from one to the other, I lost track of ingredients and amounts. 

Charlie put a calming hand on my shoulder. “Write your ingredients.”

So, I wrote, creating a mishmash from what Erin used to marinate, Justin used to brown, plus Charlie and I chose to substitute.

 

First Batch Half Air Fried

EGG ROLLS?

INGREDIENTS

Mishmash Marinade

3 tablespoons of no soy sauce (I’m allergic to soy.)

2 clove garlic minced

1 teaspoon ginger

1 cup chicken broth (Charlie insisted. We’d left out liquids, and he wanted to cover the meat.)

1 lb Ground Chicken

2 Stalks Celery

2 Carrots

1/2 Cabbage

Egg Roll Wrappers

STEPS

1. Marinate meat. Charlie spooned, I minced, and hungry cat Rills wound around our legs. Charlie combined the ingredients in a glass bowl. I plopped the ground chicken in. Splash. Rills left disappointed not to get a taste.

2. Julienne vegetables. Charlie julienned the celery and carrots. His tiny strips could have been art museum exhibits. Impressive.

My cabbage strips didn’t reach Charlie’s standards—still, adequate for the mix. We parboiled the coleslaw vegetables. 

3. Mix meat and vegetables. Charlie strained the marinated ground chicken and browned it in a cast iron skillet. 

I drained the veggies, cooled them in ice water, and squeezed them in dish towels as directed. “They’re still soggy, Charlie.”

“That’s fine. You don’t want them dried out.” 

In a huge mixing bowl, we combined the meat and vegetable mixtures. We were ready. 

4. Warp. No we weren’t. I’d forgotten to defrost the egg roll wrappers. I opened the package and inserted a table knife to pry off a section. An edge broke. I pried again and another edge broke. Futile. Putting the package in the refrigerator to defrost, I grabbed the Blue Dragon Spring Roll Wrappers off the top of the fridge. I cut it open and pulled out a shiny disk. “They feel like plastic.” A clue I ignored because, having stood for hours, I just wanted to wrap and taste the egg rolls, technically now spring rolls. 

 

Charlie leaned in with his phone to show me a photo of folding the wrapper around the mixture.

I dropped the disk onto the cutting board, plopped a serving spoonful of mixture into the middle, and folded the bottom up. Crack. 

Charlie turned the package over and pointed to a line of five step directions. “We need to dip the wrapper in warm water first.”

Duh.

The moistened spring roll wraps got sticky—tricky to handle—so one got balled into a useless form in the process.

We brushed the rolls with oil.

5. Air fry. Charlie pushed buttons on the air fryer. He set four rolls on the tray and pushed it into the chubby machine. 

The Ninja hummed and beeped. Charlie flipped the rolls to fry for five minutes on the other side. Voila. Spring rolls. Two more batches netted thirteen in all—browned and not greasy. I stored the rest of the filling in the fridge.

6. Serve. At 5:35, Spence, Charlie, and I sat at the dinner table together, a rare event. Charlie usually sleeps through our supper because of his work schedule, and our health issues dictate individual foods. We ate the same meal, almost. We used different dipping sauces—hot sauce for Spence, mustard and soy sauce for Charlie, honey mustard for me. The sauces gave the spring rolls a special zing. We all lost count of how many we ate.

 

Wrapping Egg Rolls

EGG ROLLS!

INGREDIENTS

Leftover Egg Roll Filling 

Defrosted Egg Roll Wrappers

STEPS 

1. Wrap Egg Rolls. Monday afternoon Charlie and I repeated the egg roll project with the defrosted egg roll wrappers. Supple, they easily peeled off the stack. I plopped a serving spoonful of filling then wrapped and rolled. Charlie brushed oil, the wrapper unrolled, and the contents fell out. The stickiness of the spring rolls did have an advantage. “Hand me the roll with the flap up this time, not down.” He experimented with the oil to semi-fasten the roll shut. (Charlie would discover later making pork and rice egg rolls that a dab of water shut the rolls securely.)

2. Air Fry. The egg rolls air fried toasty brown in half the time. With the mix premade and the faster air fry time, the project only took us half an hour. We netted thirteen again and didn’t break any wrappers. These tasted more like the egg rolls Spence and I had carried home from the Chinese restaurant a block from our apartment so many decades ago—just not as greasy.

 

From Wrap to Roll to Air Fried

WARM YOUR TUMMY, WARM YOUR HEART

INGREDIENTS

Share Gratitude. I joined the Google Meet with Maggie the Monday after she’d started my egg roll project and gave her a challenge. “Guess what I had for dinner tonight.”

Her forehead scrunched. “I don’t know.”

“Egg rolls.” Perhaps she couldn’t guess because I wasn’t yawning. “Thank Adam for me. He inspired me. I even bought an air fryer to make the egg rolls with Charlie.”

“Awe, that’s so sweet.” Maggie beamed candelabra bright. “How did they taste?”

STEPS

Savor. I assured Maggie the egg rolls exceeded expectations. But a full tummy and smacking lips weren’t what mattered. More than the yummy rolls—spring or egg—cooking with Charlie on his vacation and eating with my fellas is what I savored.

Still, a mere four days later, Spence interrupted his computer news scan and my nightly kitchen clean-up to ask, “When are you cooking egg rolls again?”

Egg Rolls Ready to Eat