Grocery Shopping – Ingredients for Oriental Recipes

Believe it or not, it’s so easy shopping for ingredients for Oriental recipes. I’d dare say, it’s even fun. You get so much culture in such a little place and sometimes its just really nice to get out of my comfort zone only to realize it can be just as comfortable somewhere else.

The folks at this 1st Oriental Market are amazing people. They’re so eager to help with all your needs. And I find that this is common just about anywhere I go when it comes to foreign food. People like to share their experiences and culture. I find that it isn’t any different here and the owner, Earl and his wife, make it a real pleasant experience.

Most Oriental Cooking, these days, is very simplified because almost all of the guess work has already been cut out for you. I don’t have to make every individual sauce that is used to combine with other sauces to make one great recipe. For example: when a recipe calls for Hoisin Sauce, you don’t have to make you’re own Hoisin Sauce from scratch(which would require several other ingredients), you just crack open a bottle. And what about Plum Sauce… could you imagine having to make that beforehand too? Both of these ingredients are in my Chinese Barbecue Sauce recipe, which only has 5 or 6 ingredients: Hoisin, Plum Sauce, Ketchup, Sugar, 5 spice powder etc., and that makes it really simple just buying each one of those premade bottles. But, could you imagine having to make all of those ingredients as well? You’d be making ingredients for your ingredients.

That being said, I would just like you to understand and realize that you don’t have to learn translations of ingredients you’ve probably never heard of in the first place. Because, most of the basic ingredients I show you in this video are very versatile to most of the popular Americanized Oriental recipes that you’re likely familiar with anyway.

So get familiar with the few I show you now and I’ll introduce more as we go and you’ll be a pro before you know it!

Original Egg Rolls

The Best Egg Rolls

For some reason what people are calling the “Original Egg Roll” has slipped through the cracks with online recipes. All it is, pretty much, is just a normal egg roll that is dipped in a Chinese Batter before its fried. I’ve researched it a little bit and some claim that the egg roll wrapper is suppose to be a crepe but I’ve had it served both ways. I find using a normal wrapper is much more practical for sealing and they’re fairly cheap so I don’t bother with the extra hassle of making my own.

My experience with Egg Rolls

These Egg Rolls leave little to be desired. Except for the fact that you’ll probably want more. One bite into these crunchy vegetable and pork fried rolls sends me spinning. And because these aren’t made at most Chinese Restaurants anymore, I’m left with making my own and it took me a while to perfect. But now that I’ve got it down, I thought I’d share it with the world. I’ve included my Sweet and Sour sauce and my normal egg roll recipe in the links below, if you’re interested. Also my Chinese Batter is there if you didn’t fully understand the way I make it here.

Sweet and Sour Sauce
Egg Rolls
Chinese Fry Batter

The Original Egg Rolls Ingredients:

Egg Roll Wrappers or Crepe Pancakes
1/2 lbs Ground Pork, cooked
1/2 cup Bean Sprouts
1/2 Onion, sliced
1/2 cup Cabbage, chopped
1 tsp Soy sauce White or Black Pepper to taste

Fry Batter
1 cup Self Rising Flour
1 cup Water, maybe a little more

Follow the instructions in the video tutorial to make the Original Egg Rolls.

Summer Rolls

Summer Rolls Ingredients:

Rice Paper (as many as you want)
Rice Noodle,
Shrimp, 3 to 4 per roll
Carrots, 1 tbsp per roll
Radish Sprouts, 6 to 8 per roll
Bean Sprouts, 4 to 5 per roll
Shitake Mushrooms, 3 to 4 per roll
Green Onion, 1 four inch cut per roll
Roman Lettuce 1 per roll
Water, for Rice paper and Rice noodle
Cooking Oil, for noodles

Rice Noodle should be cooked first. Just follow the package instructions but strain and add a few tbsp of cooking oil and mix thoroughly to prevent noodles from sticking. Rice paper should be rehydrated in a 1/2 inch of water for 10 seconds just before you start each individual Summer Roll. Then load each Roll with your favorite ingredients, starting with the meat first. Fold the sides in and then the back and roll the Rice Paper forward, tightly to finish and serve with Peanut Sauce, Sweet Fish Sauce, Orange Chili Sauce or Potsticker Dipping Sauce.