What does an Asian cookbook have to do with Christmas?
Plenty, if you were a member of my family. My father made the best egg rolls. [Yes, I know people call them spring rolls now, but I’m using the argot of the time.] He was known for his egg rolls. He made big batches for parties and family events, and we gave platters of them to friends at Christmas, so the holidays were egg roll season in our house.
We kids were taught how to roll egg rolls from an early age, and that was our job: We sat at the kitchen table and rolled them, and Dad did the deep-frying. I’m sure Mom was involved, but I don’t remember how.
The thing about Dad’s egg rolls was they were so good that they ruined us for any others. The ones you get in Chinese restaurants are filled with a lot of cabbage and a few bits of other things, but Dad’s filling was meaty and substantial. Nothing else came close.
After my parents died, we belatedly realized that we didn’t have the recipe, and we didn’t even know which of the many cookbooks in our house it was from. Dad never let us help make the filling, and we never thought to ask how he did it.
Sometime last year, I ran across this book in a box of stuff I was going through. I remembered it being in my house, so I thumbed through it—and found the recipe Dad used for the filling. I haven’t tested it yet (I don’t do deep frying) but I know it from the ingredients. Here it is:
Finely chop 1 pound raw pork, 1 pound shelled raw shrimp, and 6 or 8 green onions. Cook them in 1 tablespoon oil for 3 minutes. Add 1 cup chopped bean sprouts, 1/2 cup finely chopped water chestnuts, 1 tablespoon fresh ginger root… and 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce.
Making egg rolls is a lot of work, but it’s not much more work to make a big batch, and they freeze well. So when I do make them, I’ll make a lot, and we’ll be well stocked for special occasions for some time to come.