Turkey Egg Rolls -- The Leftovers Are the Real Holiday

November. Thanksgiving approaching. The capstone paper is due December 5th and I have been writing with the urgency of a person who has something to say and a deadline to say it by. The data is clear: food access predicts health outcomes with a correlation that would make any statistician sit up straight. The mothers in Scotlandville who cannot get to a grocery store are the mothers whose children have higher rates of asthma, obesity, and malnutrition, and the connection is not mysterious — it is geographical, economic, and systemic, and the system is not broken, it is functioning exactly as designed, which is the most damning sentence in the paper and the one Dr. Okafor underlined twice.

I wrote the medical school personal statement this week. It took me six hours to write 5,300 characters about why I want to be a doctor, which seems absurd — I could write 5,300 characters about red beans in twenty minutes — but the personal statement is different because the audience is different and the stakes are different and the difference requires a version of myself that is polished without being false, articulate without being performative, honest without being raw. I wrote about MawMaw Shirley. About the roux. About the flood. About DeAndre. About the kids at the library. About the 4.2 miles between Scotlandville and the nearest grocery store. About the promise I made on the Easter porch: put a kitchen in your office.

Priya read it and said, "This is you. This is exactly you." Mama read it and cried. Daddy read it and said nothing for a long time and then said, "Send it." MawMaw Shirley did not read it because MawMaw Shirley does not read applications, but I read it to her on the phone and she said, "That is the truth." And the truth, from MawMaw Shirley, is the highest validation I know.

I made turkey and rice soup with the leftover Thanksgiving turkey that Mama sent home in Tupperware — the post-Thanksgiving soup that is its own holiday, quieter and smaller, the private celebration after the public feast. The soup was excellent. The turkey, two days old, had deepened into something better than it was on Thursday, which is how Thanksgiving works: the meal improves as the leftovers age, and the leftovers are the real holiday, enjoyed alone or in pairs, without performance, without grace, without anything except the soup and the spoon and the gratitude for the meal that came before.

Mama sent me home with a container of leftover turkey and I knew I wasn’t making soup — not this time, not with everything I had just finished putting into words. The personal statement was sent, the paper was almost done, and what I wanted was something that required my hands, something that asked me to fold and press and seal, something small and complete. Turkey egg rolls were the answer: the turkey already cooked and deepened, the wrapping a kind of closure, each one its own finished thing — which felt exactly right for the week I’d just had.

Turkey Egg Rolls

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 4 (about 8 egg rolls)

Ingredients

• 2 cups cooked turkey, shredded or finely chopped
• 1 cup green cabbage, finely shredded
• 1/2 cup shredded carrots
• 2 green onions, thinly sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 8 egg roll wrappers
• 1 egg, beaten (for sealing)
• Vegetable oil, for frying (about 2 cups)
• Sweet chili sauce or soy sauce, for serving

Instructions

1. Make the filling. In a large bowl, combine the shredded turkey, cabbage, carrots, green onions, and garlic. Add the soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, and black pepper. Toss well until everything is evenly coated and combined.
2. Wrap the egg rolls. Lay an egg roll wrapper on a clean surface in a diamond orientation. Place about 1/4 cup 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 firmly, brushing the top corner with beaten egg to seal. Repeat with remaining wrappers and filling.
3. Heat the oil. Pour vegetable oil into a heavy-bottomed skillet or saucepan to a depth of about 1 1/2 inches. Heat over medium-high heat until it reaches 350°F, or until a small piece of wrapper dropped in sizzles immediately.
4. Fry the egg rolls. Working in batches of 3 or 4, carefully lower the egg rolls into the hot oil. Fry for 3 to 4 minutes, turning once, until deep golden brown and crispy on all sides. Do not crowd the pan.
5. Drain and serve. Transfer fried egg rolls to a plate lined with paper towels. Let rest for 2 minutes before serving. Serve warm alongside sweet chili sauce or soy sauce for dipping.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 310 | Protein: 22g | Fat: 12g | Carbs: 28g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 520mg