Eggrolls and Coconut Chicken Soup

On Friday, I drove over to my friend Lily's house. Where she taught me how to make authentic Thai Eggrolls and Coconut Chicken Soup. It had so much fun and it turned out to be a lot easier that I expected.

I took lots of notes and photos. Those I will upload later.

Basic Eggroll Recipe by Lily Davis.
8 cups finely shredded cabbage
4 cups shredded carrots
8 cups cooked rice noodles, cut into 2"-3" lengths
1 cup sugar
3-4 tsp salt
liberal amounts of black pepper
3 packages of eggroll wrappers (we only used about 2 1/2 pkgs)

Mix the all your filling ingredients together and let them set to marinate. Lily said the longer you let them set the better the flavor will be, but we on a time limit, so ours only set for 1/2 hour or so. Next, you have to get all the liquid out of the filing mixture. Take a cotton towl and lay it in the sink. Put a double handful of the filling mixture on it, wrap it up and begin squeezing all the moisture out. This step is important otherwise your wrappers will get soggy. Repeat until you until you are done.

Lay out the eggroll wrapper on the diagonal. Place a pile of the filling in that corner. Pull the point up and over the filling. Keep it tight. Roll the eggroll to the center of the wrapper. Then fold in each side corner. However at this point you want to pull them in enough and at an angle the last point is slightly skinnier that the eggroll itself. It won't absorb as much oil that way. Repeat, Deep fry and enjoy!

Edited 2/24/09: I found a blog mentioning baked egg rolls and I plan I trying that on the 10 I have in the freezer. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet with non-stick spray. Cook 6-7 minutes on each side until they are brown and crisp.

Coconut Chicken Soup by Lily Davis:
1 can coconut milk
1 can water
2 cans mushrooms or fresh if you prefer
1 chicken breast, thinly sliced
Lime Leaf: 2-3 if fresh or 3-5 if frozen
6-8" piece of lemon grass cut on the diagonal
3 Red Thai peppers
1/2 cup sugar
fish sauce (2-3 Tbsp/ to taste)
Juice of 1 Lime
Cilantro

Mix coconut milk, water, pepper, lime leaf, lemon grass, sugar in a pan over medium heat. Be careful, coconut milk can skald just like regular milk. Once it is hot, add chicken and fish sauce. Simmer to cook the chicken and bring out the flavor of the lime leaf and lemongrass. Add the mushrooms, simmer a little longer. Once you turn off the heat, add the lime juice. Adding it while cooking will make it bitter. Serve with cilantro on top.
NOTE: I found a recipe in my Everything Thai cookbook for this also, however it adds red curry powder or paste. I think the Cambodian Thai restaurant that I go to does this and it is very good.

Eggroll dipping sauce:
Ok, we didn't make this, but Lily told me what was in it and I tried to make it at home. Mine tastes good, but isn't as thick as Lily's. So I think I added too much water.

Chili peppers, simple syrup (water/sugar), garlic and white vinegar.

These all tasted very good and I hope you try one.