BATTLEWOK BEGINS
To introduce BATTLEWOK, I'm going to present spring rolls. There will be deep frying.
First, meet BATTLEWOK. He is a ten-pound iron wok. Arrived in my house yesterday. He is the type of wok that my Central Asian ancestors carried with them into battle, wielded from horseback to decapitate fleeing villagers.
And meet the vegetables. BATTLEWOK and the vegetables are going to get intimate shortly.
The knife does not have a name. If she ever gets one, it's going to be something like "Fuck, put my fingertip in ice, fuck, and get me to the hospital."
The vegetables are what was around. Carrots, green onions, snow peas and bella mushrooms. They got chopped into spices and chunks; small enough to cook, large enough to hold onto a crunch.
I made two fillings for this; one cold and one hot. For the hot, I boiled up some rice vermicelli1. Next, I fried five cloves of garlic and half the vegetables, adding the noodles to that.
Killing the heat, I hit BATTLEWOK with one shot of Cock2 and a drizzle of sesame oil. More stirring ensued as the Cock came to a boil instantly and infused the noodles. The contents of BATTLEWOK got removed into a bowl, tossed with sriracha3 and dumped in the fridge.
The second filling I did was rice. As this was for hot spring rolls, I didn't want to pre-cook the ingredients, as otherwise, I'd get mush. Solution: Toss cooked rice with rice vinegar, soy sauce, black bean sauce4 and the vegetables. That also got placed in a bowl and I was on to filling.
Filling gets spooned into the centre of the wrapper. Yes, I used store-bought wrappers. So sue me. On another day, I'll cover making egg skins, because BATTLEWOK has the right shape for it, but it's a pain and I was working on a time budget.
The edges of the wrapper get daubed with water. Water and cornstarch makes better paste but, well, no cornstarch. Note: Start shopping list.
All four corners get folded to the centre and the spring roll gets a little pat down to set the bond. These need to dry out slightly so that they don't spill all over the place, so I pre-made the lot.
Now we hit the exciting bit: deep-frying the hot rolls. Because I'm a Canadian, I added just enough oil to BATTLEWOK to half-cover a roll. Now, serious frying infuses your food with oily goodness. However! There are a few things to consider:
- Motherfucker is hot. Do not leave it unattended, duck out to smoke a blunt or hit the bathroom.
- There's probably some health shit about tossing your food in hot oil.
- Get your shit prepped before you crank the heat under the oil,
because it's all going to get fast and unless you're ready with
your Shaolin frying skills, being an anal retentive bitch is the
way that you're going to survive. BATTLEWOK does not
forgive.
That means:- Spring rolls ready to go. Within arm's reach.
- Somewhere to dry the cooked spring rolls; a plate with a paper towel works well enough for this.
- Nothing between you and these three points. You need to move without
So, that all ready, I cranked the heat. It's gotta get hot. BATTLEWOK gets it hot enough in just shy of four minutes. You can tell it's hot enough when a piece of dough flutters to the top.
I set two spring rolls in BATTLEWOK and started the frying. They got flipped as soon as the sides were crusty golden brown. When the bottom was brown as well, off they went into the plate.
My kung-fu was strong and there was no burning, no flaming and no swearing. BATTLEWOK and I danced the dance of oil and came out unscathed.
That all done, it was time to pull the filling out and make the cold spring rolls.
I pulled out the rice paper and filled a bowl with hot water. The rice paper got dipped in the water and swished around until it had about the texture of a used condom.
Filling in the middle, top folded down, bottom folded up, then the roll was, well, rolled. End to end, to make a medium-tight wrap around the filling. This happened many more times, as the rolls kept accidentally vanishing into my mouth.
That's what survived to get taken to supper. All of the above spring rolls got nommed. Midway through, it was announced that the secret ingredient was Cock.
- Someday, I shall post about that word. However, suffice it to say that the rice vermicelli I used was angel hair. After cooking it, I gave it a quick chop up, so that it would fit into the little rounds of rice paper.
- Cock Brand Fish Sauce. I use it because it contains no shrimp or crab. And because I get to make dick jokes.
- Sriracha is Thai chili paste. It's easy to find and goes great in stir fry, eggs, potatoes, and anywhere where you want a hit of UFC-strength pepper.
- This will get its own post as well. Suffice it to say that black bean sauce is another versatile ingredient that contains more than a shot of distilled awesome.