Growing up, I had to learn how to wrap egg rolls (chả giò). Before I get too much further, let me elaborate on translations.

Vietnamese Culture:

  • Egg rolls (chả giò) - There are deep fried using wrappers made out of flour
  • Spring rolls (gỏi cuốn) - These are rolls made out of rice paper soaked in water which are not deep fried.

Chinese Culture

  • Spring rolls - These are the same as egg rolls in Vietnamese culture.

The reason I bring this up was that one of my Chinese friends wanted put in an order for 40 spring rolls at Lee’s Sandwiches. I asked him if it was the deep fried one or the rolled one, and he was confused. I explained spring rolls in Vietnamese lingo aren’t deep fried. Luckily I got clarification and we got the deep fried one for his dinner party.

Bonus Confusion: There also is a special variation of egg rolls

  • Egg rolls variation 2 - Deep fried rolls made out of rice paper soaked in water (in essence a deep fried spring roll).

To make things worse, the wikipedia entry for egg rolls- is pretty bizarre and totally inaccurate. Perhaps someone should edit the page…

Wrapping egg rolls pretty much was a family affair. My mom would make the filling, and my brother and I were wrap the egg rolls. My dad then would fry them.

One of the days a while back, I watched my dad fry the egg rolls. He would get a large pan, and fill it half way with oil so there was only about a half inch. He would turn on the gas burner and put a raw garlic in the oil.

When the garlic started to sizzle, he then would put the egg rolls in. He told me to make sure they don’t over crowd so they can cook and the skin can be crispy. After a couple minutes he would flip the egg rolls and continue frying it until the entire thing was golden brown.

My dad would constantly monitor the garlic. See, when you put a bunch of egg rolls in, the temperature drops and you would need to turn the gas up. As it cooks, you don’t want the oil to become to hot.

Performing shallow frying really is an art. You have to pay attention and be present. Small adjustments here, small adjustments there would always need to be made every couple minutes. Call me a traditionalist, but shallow frying egg rolls seems to yield a less oily product then using a machine to deep fry. Maybe it is nostalgia deceiving me, but something about taking your time does seem to yield a different product.

When the egg rolls were done, there would be put on a plate with paper towels to let the oil seep out a little bit.

I remember one day my parent’s friends were over watching a Vietnamese cooking program. It was some episode about bánh xèo (Vietnamese tumeric rice crepes). I noticed as much as they were commenting on the main dish, there were commenting on how fresh the herbs looked next to the dish.

See, a key thing in all Vietnamese food are the herbs you accompany with the dish you are cooking. Traditionally, every dish is paired with something different. It is even to the point that many of the herbs don’t have any proper English translations.

For egg rolls, there would always be some lettuce, some herbs (like Vietnamese basil or fish mint - this will get its own post later). You would pick up the egg roll with lettuce, stuff some herbs, and dip it with a special fish sauce mix.

To this day we rarely wrap eggrolls together as a family since everyone is busy, but when we do it brings back all the warm and fuzzies of those shared experiences as a kid.

eggroll