Making an Egg Roll

Disclaimer: This post is not about making an egg roll but the subtleties (wondered if I may use that classification) associated with it. Now that the disclaimer is given, I must say I felt it’s an unnecessary sentence that I had to type, because I believe almost everybody would know how to make an egg roll. I mean seriously, the name itself is self-explanatory. Egg Roll literally means an egg rolled out in some kind of a base, and preferably it should be edible. That is a very simplistic explanation but also a perfectly logical one according to me. I do however would definitely point out that for us Bengalis, Egg Roll is nothing less than ‘Manna Dew’, instead something possibly even greater with its various delicious variants (Notice Points : 1)The stress that I want to put on this point above; 2) I used the term ‘Bengali’s instead of the commonly used ‘Bong’, just to elaborate my dislike for this particular short name for my clan; 3) Various and Variants at the interval of just 1 word sounds funny to me; 4)‘Manna Dew’ refers to a heavenly tasty juice and has been used in Keat’s poem’ La belle dame sans merci’, wanted to use that just to freak you all out for a second – I’m smiling) Now enough dilly dallying, there are enough proofs in blogs of Ovshake, Bongpen and many more about the attachment a Bengali has with Egg Rolls or for that matter with several other variants like an Egg Chicken Roll (ECR was the term used by my ex colleague to direct the boy who took order over phone about the difference between ‘Egg Chicken Roll’ and ‘Ek Chicken Roll’ –an effective method I must say). Ok now, no more diversions, let me get back to the reason why I started writing this post and let me assure you, I will go straight to the point. This post is about how I managed to overcome a few of the many flaws in my cooking, this time my flaws while making an egg roll. See, I went straight to the point but now that doesn’t sound interesting anymore; that is the reason I tried writing a bit of a prologue. Anyway, let’s get back to the point. Last night my plan for dinner was 3 types of rolls. By roll I mean the Maida (flour) based Roll, the way we Bengalis savour this tasty and unhealthy dish, not some dry and pale wheat based 62nd step cousin of the pure joy that an Egg Roll is (I don’t know what 62nd step cousin means, but basically I meant a very distant relative). Type 1 would be filled by some left over ‘Baked Vegetables in White Sauce’ and Type 2 would be containing some Chicken Sheekh Frozen Kababs from Venky’s (I have been frantically hunting for opportunities to try them, now that it was almost 2 weeks that we had purchased them and haven’t tried them yet). Now these 2 had been planned to be mini rolls and the 3rd type would be a grand egg roll and I didn’t have eggs for them. So I whatsappd S to get eggs on his way back and decided to finish the other 2 types, before he is back. The Maida dough was already there but to my dismay, while rolling it out I found that it was too soft (unfortunately this realisation came to me much later and I have happily learnt to tackle this problem -I'm smiling). I tried making a small round Paratha for the Veg Roll and obviously the shape was as close to round as much as my aunt’s place at New Barrackpore is close to mine at Tollygunge. Anyway, the first one was not a roll but a half folded paratha, something like a crepe. The second one thank fully rolled more, this time looking more like a patisapta (Please refer to google images for a look if you haven’t had the fortune of tasting one yet). The second type could not become rolls but took a new avatar of ‘Large Luchi’ sized hard parathas (I know you don’t understand this but it’s beyond me to try explaining this any further; I wish I had taken photos to explain this). Both times, I tried to counter the softness of the dough with little flour and extra oil and of course the effects were not what I had expected. I was utterly disappointed with my efforts. Thus, as soon as he entered, I greeted S with the boomerang that tonight’s dinner could turn out to be muri-makha (Bengali version of Sukha Bhel Puri, the home version much tastier as per me). Encouraging as always, S assured me that we would dine on the rolls or whatever else it is that I have prepared. I smiled and turned my eyes towards Sourav’s popular game show on Zee Bangla, i.e. Dadagiri, though the ghost- thought of finally trying to make that egg roll lurked its ugly head often and kept me very distracted. Finally, I decided, let’s take the plunge, jo hoga dekha jayega. Since these were going to be grand ones, the dough dedicated for these ones were bigger. When I had last entered the kitchen to make some tea for us, I suddenly felt that instead of oil, probably bit more of flour could harden this dough up. To remind me of this sudden discovery, I remembered to sprinkle some Maida on the rolling board and yes, I did remember to mix more flour with the left over dough when I saw this sprinkle. I rolled the first one and it was quite ROU (no it wasn’t ROUND but reached a ROU state thankfully). So my first lesson of the night was to add adequate flour to counter dough softness. As I stretched the Paratha on the frying pan and poured the whipped egg on it, I suddenly remembered the magicians with hands instead of wands. Ok, I meant the people who make the rolls on the tiny dark road side roll stalls with blue wooden borders, places which make the tastiest rolls with all that greenish-yellow chilli sauce, tomato sauce, cucumber and onions. I remembered them taking the paratha+egg base from the huge frying pan to a white marble slab and place one base over half of another one on that slab. Any number, 3/4/5/6 or even more could constitute one such batch, the max that the marble slab could fit, one half of a single base placed neatly on top of the other base' half. They would then remember the fillings that were to go specifically in every one of this batch (For Eg – Say each batch had 6 rolls each with different fillings – chicken, mutton, panner, kabab, veg, combinations, just about anything - and they would remember each. And yes, the next batch usually would come in within 2-3 mins during the busy evening hours and almost 99.9% times they do not make mistakes). They would then fill those specific fillings inside and roll it deftly and then wrap a tissue and hand it over to the customer. Their hands do resemble wands in those moments. The tissue paper helps the customer to hold the hot roll and stops the fillings to fall out from the lower end of the roll. As we bite deeper into the roll, we strip the roll of its tissue clothes (sounds weird but I like it okay). So I gained this sudden common sense of NOT trying to roll the roll on the hot frying pan but take it down, place it directly on opened napkins or tissues, let it cool and then fill in any other filling for the roll (I put onions, tomato sauce, pepper and some of left over sheekh kababs which I earlier failed to capture within the mini rolls. The kabas pieces were of course better settled in this version of the roll). My expertise increased and the second ECSKR(EggChickenSheekhKababRoll) turned out even better (me smiling). We had a happy dinner (the good mega roll overpowered the bad mini roll+mini luchi-parathas). I learnt the happiness of remembering and applying simple techniques while trying to be a good cook someday. And then I thought happiness increases when shared with everyone. So, here goes my post on making egg rolls and sharing with all of you that enlightening realisation which I had while making them. These simple things would be known by most aspiring cooks but sharing feels good. Read this at the risk of head ache, boredom and hopefully some drooling tongues and memories of our very own Kolkata rolls. Here in Mumbai Haangla’s comes close. But I miss my roadside, dust and chilly tomato sauce flavoured, semi-soft hot parathas hiding their newly wedded better eggy halves, willingly and happily succumbing to my blissful bites. Long live Kolkata rolls.