Southern-Style Egg Rolls

Packing. I am packing the things that are mine — the books, the yoga mats, the writing notebooks, and above all, the kitchen. Fumiko's ceramic bowls, wrapped individually in newspaper. The cast iron tamagoyaki pan, seasoned black, irreplaceable. The chipped bowl that holds my morning miso soup. The recipe cards, framed and unframed. The kombu, the bonito flakes, the three kinds of miso. The kitchen is the last thing I pack and the first thing I will unpack, because the kitchen is not a room. The kitchen is an identity. My identity fits in six boxes and a suitcase of spices.

I made a last meal in this apartment — not deliberately, not ceremonially, just a meal that happened to be the last. Fumiko's gyoza. Brian's favorite, actually. The filling: pork, cabbage, ginger, garlic, sesame oil. The folding: precise, the half-moon crimps that Fumiko insisted on. I made sixty of them and we ate them together at the kitchen table — Brian, Miya, me — and the meal was quiet and good and the gyoza were perfect and the perfection was the cruelest thing, because it proved that the cooking was never the problem. The cooking was always excellent. The marriage was the thing that wouldn't hold its shape.

Brian helped me pack the kitchen boxes into the car. He carried Fumiko's bowls carefully, as if he understood, finally, what they meant. Maybe he did. Maybe it took the leaving for him to see the bowls, the way it sometimes takes a person leaving a room for the people in it to notice the furniture. He set the box in the back seat and said, "Be careful with those." I said, "I always am." The exchange was ordinary and enormous and the ordinariness was the mercy — we were not fighting, not crying, not performing. We were two people carrying boxes to a car. We were doing the practical work of uncoupling, and the practical work was bearable in a way that the emotional work had never been.

Miya watched the packing with interest but not distress. She has been told about the two houses. She has accepted the two houses. She is four and the world changes for four-year-olds constantly — new foods, new words, new rules — and a new apartment is just another change in a life made entirely of changes. The resilience is her gift. The resilience is also, I suspect, the armor that will become visible later, in therapy, in her twenties, when she asks the question that children of divorce always ask: why wasn't I enough to make them stay?

The gyoza I made that last night were Fumiko’s, not mine to share here — some recipes belong to their people. But the spirit of that meal, the filling and the folding and the quiet at the table, lives on in every stuffed, crimped, fried thing I make now. These Southern-Style Egg Rolls are what I turned to in my new kitchen, the first week in my new apartment, when I needed something that required my hands to be busy and my mind to go still. They are not gyoza. But they ask the same thing of you: patience, repetition, presence — and they give back the same thing, too.

Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 6 (about 12 egg rolls)

Ingredients

1 lb ground pork (or a mix of pork and shredded chicken)
2 cups coleslaw mix (shredded cabbage and carrots)
1/2 cup frozen corn, thawed
1/2 cup canned black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup shredded pepper jack cheese
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
12 egg roll wrappers
1 egg, beaten (for sealing)
Vegetable oil, for frying (about 3 cups)
Ranch dressing or hot sauce, for serving

Instructions

Cook the filling. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, brown the ground pork, breaking it apart as it cooks, about 6–8 minutes. Drain excess fat. Add the garlic, cumin, smoked paprika, salt, pepper, and cayenne. Stir and cook 1 minute more.
Add the vegetables. Add the coleslaw mix, corn, and black beans to the skillet. Cook, stirring, for 3–4 minutes until the cabbage is just softened. Remove from heat and let the filling cool for 10 minutes. Stir in the shredded cheese.
Set up your rolling station. Lay an egg roll wrapper on a clean surface in a diamond orientation. Brush the edges lightly with beaten egg.
Fill and fold. Place about 3 tablespoons of filling in the lower center of the wrapper. Fold the bottom corner up over the filling, then fold in the two side corners snugly. Roll upward tightly toward the top corner, pressing to seal. Repeat with remaining wrappers and filling.
Heat the oil. In a deep skillet or Dutch oven, heat 2–3 inches of vegetable oil to 350°F over medium-high heat.
Fry in batches. Fry 3–4 egg rolls at a time, turning occasionally, until deep golden brown and crispy, about 3–4 minutes per batch. Do not crowd the pan. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate to drain.
Serve. Serve hot with ranch dressing, hot sauce, or your dipping sauce of choice.

Nutrition (per serving)

Southern-Style Egg Rolls — The Folding That Holds