Egg Roll

The egg roll is a variety of deep-fried appetizer served in American Chinese restaurants. It is a cylindrical, savory roll with shredded cabbage, chopped meat, or other fillings inside a thickly wrapped wheat flour skin, which is fried in hot oil. Despite its name, egg rolls generally don't contain egg.

The dish is served warm, and is usually eaten with the fingers, dipped in duck sauce, soy sauce, plum sauce, or hot mustard, often from a cellophane packet. Egg rolls are a ubiquitous feature of American Chinese cuisine.

Origins

The origins of the egg roll are unclear and remain disputed. Egg rolls are very similar to, but distinct from, the spring rolls served in mainland China, and were first seen in the early 20th century in the United States.

Andrew Coe, author of ''Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States'', has stated that the modern American egg roll was probably invented at a Chinese restaurant in New York City in the early 1930s, by one of two chefs who both later claimed credit for the creation: Lung Fong of Lung Fong's, or Henry Low of Port Arthur. According to Coe, Low's recipe, printed in a 1938 cookbook, ''Cook at Home in Chinese'', included " bamboo shoots, roast pork, shrimp, scallions, water chestnuts, salt, MSG, sugar, palm oil, and pepper," but notably did not include cabbage, which is the main filling ingredient in modern egg rolls.

Ingredients

Despite the name, egg rolls do not typically contain egg in the filling. It is unclear how the word "egg" appeared in the name, since the predominant flavor in American egg rolls is cabbage, not eggs. A 1979 article in ''The Washington Post'' offered two theories: 1) that the word for "egg" in Chinese, ( 蛋, Mandarin:''dàn'', Cantonese:''daan6''), sounded similar to the word for "spring", ( 春, Mandarin:''chūn'', Cantonese:''ceon1''), and 2) that southern Chinese chefs used eggs in the thin wrapper skin. Another possible origin of the name is from a recipe for "egg roll" (also labeled as "dan gun") in the 1917 cookbook ''The Chinese Cook Book'' by Shiu Wong Chan. This recipe called for meat and vegetables rolled inside a layer of fried egg rather than a flour-based wrapper.

Nom Wah Tea Parlor in New York City claims the oldest or original egg roll. The restaurant has been in operation since 1920 and states they have been making their very large egg rolls using a thin omelette or 'egg crêpe' wrapper since 1929 (unlike modern variations which use a wheat dough wrapper).

Other varieties

While there are many types of spring rolls native to East Asia and available in authentic Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese restaurants in the United States, American egg rolls are distinctive. A typical "New York–style" egg roll measures two inches in diameter by six inches in length, with a thick, chewy, crispy, bumpy exterior skin. Egg rolls, like other Americanized Chinese food specialties, may contain ingredients and flavors that are not common in China, including broccoli. A particularly American variety of egg roll is the pizza log, which is not associated with American Chinese cuisine, instead being filled with pepperoni pizza ingredients and served as a deep-fried tavern appetizer.

Restaurants that serve egg rolls occasionally also offer spring rolls as a separate menu option, and these spring rolls may be served with a cold filling wrapped in Banh trang rice paper wrappers (particularly at Vietnamese restaurants that serve both egg rolls and spring rolls as appetizers), or fried, as seen in some Thai and Chinese eateries. When fried, spring rolls served in Asian restaurants in the United States usually have a smaller diameter and a lighter, crispier skin made out of thinner sheets of wheat or rice dough.

Gallery

File:CookbookEggrollOpen.jpg
File:Egg rolls (5445621283).jpg
File:Dessert egg roll (6848762093).jpg
File:Mmm... egg rolls (25936887106).jpg
File:Sweet sauce (4128740680).jpg, With sweet sauce

See also

* Brik
* Chả giò
* Chiko Roll
* Crab Rangoon
* Gyeran-mari
* List of deep fried foods
* List of stuffed dishes
* Lumpia
* Pastel
* Pizza rolls
* Popiah
* Sambousa
* Spring roll
* Summer roll
* Yaka mein

References

{{Deep frying foods, state=collapsed

Appetizers
American Chinese cuisine
Deep fried foods
Stuffed dishes
American snack foods