Making Egg Rolls: A Photo Essay

Some things are a process. Growing up, all of Pakou’s large family jumped in to the egg roll making process. The first time Pakou made egg rolls among friends in college, there was a houseful of people waiting for her instructions with messy hands and hungry stomachs. And the egg rolls were gone by the end of the evening.

Since then, I’ve joined Pakou in her away-from-family egg roll making, and together we’ve managed to find a pretty good rhythm – shopping for ingredients, taste testing the filling, and wrapping each roll – even without the houseful of extra hands. So a couple times a year, we make a huge batch (90-100 egg rolls), eat way too many the first night, and freeze the rest. Here’s a snapshot of our latest afternoon of egg roll making. They’re already gone and I’m craving more.

We’ve found you need at least three people to keep the process going smoothly: one person to peel the wraps as needed so they won’t dry out, a second person to stuff and roll the wraps, and a third to fry (a job Pakou and I both despise. We’re grateful for friends like Anna who are down with hot oil).

Sadly, we had no photos of eating the egg rolls because we were too hungry and the egg rolls too good to even consider taking time for a shoot. Art is good. But food sometimes trumps.