Egg rolls are for lovers

What’s better than getting’ high on chocolate cookies? Having Chinese food when the munchies hit! Well what I really wanted was a really good, meaty egg roll like I used to get down home. Far too many places (Mr. Pong and your jumbo egg roll I mean you!) put way too much cabbage and sprouts in their egg rolls and far far too many don’t make egg rolls at all preferring spring rolls. *blowing a raspberry*
What is a girl to do when she’s in the mood? Make her own of course! Bear in mind that with my altered state my photos are on the slightly blurry side for good reason ;-)

Egg rolls

Ingredients:

1 pkg. egg roll wrappers
¼ lb ground pork (I didn’t have any so I used hot Italian sausages that I removed from the casings and re ground using my Kitchen Aid mixer (with meat grinding attachment)
1 diced onion
1 diced red pepper
handful mushrooms
6 water chestnuts sliced
green onions diced
½ lb nappa cabbage
1 tbsp. hoisin sauce
soya sauce to taste
4 cloves garlic, chopped
½ lb bean sprouts

I re-seasoned my Italian sausages because they are NEVER as hot as you want them to be. I added liberal doses of chili flakes, cayenne pepper, black pepper and seasoning salt.

In a wok, stir fry the pork, onion, red pepper, mushrooms, and water chestnuts together, stirring until golden. Add garlic, hoisin sauce, and soya sauce to taste. For last 5-6 minutes add cabbage. I like my cabbage to have a bit of a crunch to it.
Normally I hate bean sprouts but my boyfriend refused to participate in the cooking process (ok the cleaning up of my cooking process) if I didn’t add them. To blanched them for about 30 s to 1 min to take the edge off the taste. That way when he could see me put them in but the taste wasn’t as potent. If you do this recipe ignore this part – but to be accurate I’m telling you exactly what I did.

Using a tablespoon, put a spoonful of the mixture in the middle of an egg roll wrapper. Again, to maintain peace with the boy toy I wrapped them like old fashioned rolls (seam in the middle with both ends folded up and sealed) but I prefer to roll them similar to a spring roll (place wrapper diagonal fold top corner in first, then both ends, then finish rolling it tight to the end. *sigh*

Do not stack or let pre-rolled egg rolls touch each other before you fry. The wrappers get soft quickly and will tear quite easily (even tiny tears suck) letting all the oil in your roll once you start frying.

Deep fry in wok (I used canola oil because it was handy) but make sure your oil is HOT (375 degrees) before you start! You want the egg rolls to absorb a minimum of oil and that means HOT is of the essence.

Take out when golden, which should only be 2-3 minutes (if your oil is hot enough) because your filling is already cooked.

We only had VH sauce but we were so hungry by the end that we scarfed them down like they were golden fried pockets of pure love…and really they were!

We had about 2 egg rolls worth of sausage left over so I took some day-old rice and stir fried that with it along with some peas, carrots and more mushrooms. Oh happy day!

I've just discovered this link to a product called Soul Rolls, which I might have to experiment with the next time I break out the wok. I'm definitely intrigued. *eyebrow cocked*

Fun with herb

White people always know what to do with herb that Black folks haven't even heard of let alone tried. All the White people I know have kits for their weed. Fancy old-skool lunchboxes filled with specialty papers, scissors, a pipe, filter paper and often a jar of roaches. Black people will often have to run next door for papers cuz we rarely think ahead. We spend enough time thinking about just how and where to get the shit in the first place. In this case I knew of the existence of herb-based cookies but a) never purchased enough to use recipes and shit with it, b) kinda just wanted to smoke it. My friend Roach was on it in a heartbeat, when she learned I had never had the pleasure.


This is how it went down:

Marijuana Cookies

Ingredients:

¼ oz herb
2 cups/ 4 stick of unsalted butter
¼ of brown sugar
1 large egg
½ teaspoon of baking soda
½ tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
1 tsp. vanilla
¼ cup cocoa
1 cup water

Melt 4 sticks of butter in a heavy based pot. Don’t worry if it seems like a lot but the infusion takes a few hours and a bit of the butter is lost through evaporation.
Add 1 cup of water and bring to a boil
We used ¼ oz of herb, which we tied inside a piece of cheesecloth and dropped in our pot mixture of water and butter, turning the burner down to a simmer.

Simmer for 5-6 hours (stirring occasionally) or until the butter turns a dark green color.

If sitting in the house all day like we were, you might wanna crack open a window… or don’t and reap the rewards of a contact high from the herb wafting through your home for the better part of the day…like we did ;-)
Once the butter is dark green and murky looking, put in fridge for a ½ hour or so to solidify.

Once butter is solid again poke a hole in it through to the bottom, to let the water drain out, which should also allow the butter to release from the pan. Pour out any remaining water and place butter back in pan to gently melt.

According to the author of this recipe, the sugar ratio directly affects the effects of the herb so use sparingly. This will not result in the tastiest of cookies (we could taste the mary jane) but it will be potent and when eating ‘shrooms or pot everyone knows it’s not the taste that matters it’s the aftermath.

Combine melted butter with ¼ of brown sugar and cream together with 1 large egg
Add ½ teaspoon of baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
1 tsp. vanilla
¼ cup cocoa
Dough will be slightly dry to the touch so I suggest using your hands rather than a mixer, besides it feels better to get your hands into your food. Get used to it; although I do have a very nice Kitchen Aid stand mixer I like to get my hands dirty as often as possible in my recipes.
Flatten dough to ¼ inch thickness and commence cutting in to shapes of your choice.

Bake at 350 C for 10-15 minutes depending on whether you like chewy or crisp cookies.
Let cool on racks for 5 minutes and enjoy with a big glass of milk or some other libation.

Cooking from a Black Persepective

I've been hemming an hawing about if and how I wanted to do a food blog for quite some time now and I've finally decided to give it a shot when I realized how truly interested I've become in gastronomical pursuits. Everybody loves food but when you start asking for mandolin's at Christmas, a ricer, or even a melon baller, one can assume that you're a bit more serious than some about your relationship with food. Me, I'm a cautious experimenter. I mean shit, I'm Black yo! LOLNot to offend the bougie gourmands who are also of the Black persuasion but Black people have a different mind set about food. What is and isn't normally eaten would make most foodies roll their eyes at our ignorance. Some things are simple we like pork and most pork products. We do not and are not in the habit of eating anything raw or 'tartar' *affect a snooty British accent when you say it.We also like things saucy and spicier than our White counterparts. This does not mean blow-the-roof-off-your-mouth hot. We like spice – not necessarily “hot” . Seasonings that are flavourful and sumptuous with zest and kick. I’m not a fan of Tabasco (unless it’s in a prairie fire) for this reason exactly. I don't do missions to see who can withstand the hottest scoville measurement; that's so not my style. I actually make my own hot sauce that I just might share one of these days...if you're lucky ;-)
I live in downtown Toronto just steps away from Chinatown and Kensington Market, which I absolutely adore for food shopping. Many people in the city like to go to St. Lawrence Market for whatever cache they feel it lends them. I hate it. It’s too over priced, the veggies are often over ripe or rotten and it’s embarrassing to see the St. Andrew Poultry truck pull up outside and make deliveries straight from…wait for it, their slaughterhouse in Kensington market! I hate the snob factor in food. I don’t know how many people have told me that they think Chinatown is dirty or that they don’t have the same quality of food up there. For everyday cooking this neighborhood is excellent for produce, meat and fish. Of course if you’re doing high-end cooking I think the best places to go are Meat on the Beach, The Healthy Butcher or Cumbraes but I work in the arts which basically means I get paid in crumbs so unless I’m doing a fab roast beef, steak or crown roast of lamb (or get a fat raise in salary) I’ll be frequenting my market regulars. This blog is meant to be a smorgasbord of flavours and techniques, some of which I might be trying for the first time, which is kinda why I’m documenting it. I’ve also started it because there appears to be a serious lack of Black food bloggers out here. I know we can throw down in the kitchen and know we eat hearty so why don’t we blog about it?You will find that a lot of my home cooking is in the Southern tradition because as a Black Nova Scotian our roots go through the Underground Railroad. We do not have a large Caribbean population like Toronto, in fact I hadn’t even experienced curry chicken until I came to Toronto. Down home, we like black-eyed peas in our rice not pigeon peas like Jamaicans, we eat pasta and we prefer our chicken fried not jerk. That said, since I’ve come here I appreciate Caribbean cooking a lot and have perfected many dishes that even true West Indians have given me props for. This blog is purely for my pleasure. I want to experiment with a wide range of cooking styles and explore the gamut of culinary subjects, some that aren’t always politically correct but fuck it. This is my blog. With an intro like that how could I not make this recipe my first: Pot Cookies comin’ up!