Pastrami Egg Rolls

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We are filming season 2 of Girl Meets Farm right now!! My house is filled with cameras and lighting things and we’re currently on our day off, so I’m catching up on laundry and showing Lily, Alana, and Michelle all around Grand Forks because they are in town to be guests on the show!! I’m introducing them to all of Grand Forks’ greatest hits: cheesy pickles, Darcy’s, and hotdish. Mmmmm. 

The shoot is almost halfway over and it has been so much fun. We’ve been filming so many hearty comforting wintery dishes that are the types of foods that I *live* for (spätzle! goulash! latkes! lefse!) and on the days that we shot the holiday episode, it snowed all of that snow!!! It was perfect. Every few days friends and family come over from near and far to participate in meal scenes, and that’s been the best thing ever, second only to the fact that during shoot weeks Eggboy allows us to have the TV that’s normally in our kitchen set up in our bedroom. Hehe. 

Mark your calendars, the season premieres on 11/11 @ 11!! (10am central :) 

Ok I’ve gotta go take my out of town fronds to meet the town chocolate shop now. But I’m leaving you with pastrami egg rolls because ever since I had pastrami egg rolls years ago at Red Farm in the West Village with my auntie and Eggboy (it was Eggboy’s first time meeting any of my family members!!!), I have been obsessed. Obviously. Because it’s salty smoky meat wrapped in an egg roll wrapper and fried to chewy delicious perfection. And dipped in a good strong mustard, because acid. These have caraway as a nod to the standard pastrami on rye, and they are kind of me as an appetizer?? Chinese, Jewish, and salty 😜. This recipe is loosely based on my friend Nile’s family egg roll recipe because Nile is the best egg roll maker in the North and she has leftover egg rolls cold for breakfast the next day, which is a very strong move. 

Pastrami Egg Rolls

makes 8

Ingredients

1 tb canola oil, plus more for frying

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 stalk celery, finely chopped

A pinch of kosher salt

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp caraway seeds

8 oz pastrami, finely sliced

10 oz coleslaw mix or shredded green cabbage

1 tb soy sauce

1 tb apple cider vinegar

Black pepper

1 tb flour

1 tb water

8 egg roll wrappers

Strong deli mustard or Chinese hot mustard, for serving

Clues

In a large skillet, heat the 1 tablespoon canola oil over medium heat. Add the onion, celery, and pinch of salt and cook until soft, 5-7 minutes. Add the garlic and caraway and cook for another minute. Add the pastrami and cook until heated. Turn off the heat and stir in the shredded cabbage. Season with soy sauce, apple cider vinegar, and black pepper. Taste and adjust as desired. In a small bowl, mix together the water and flour to form a paste (it will act as your glue). Fill egg roll wrappers like the above gif, sealing well with the paste.

Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pot to 360ºf-370ºf. You can either use a lot of oil to fully submerge and deep fry them or do what I do and only heat about 1/2” of oil and turn them while frying to ensure that all sides get crisp. Fry for a few minutes until the outsides are golden brown. Transfer to a paper towel or wire rack, let cool slightly, and serve with mustard.

new york

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bloop! greetings from los angeles, not new york. i know that's weird since all of these photos are from new york, but that's what i'm working with these days: a lot less internet, a vomiting to-do list, and operas every day. so all good things! (save for the to-do list.) all tasty things, all fun things, all things that include really awesome humans.

most of these shots are from a breakfast sandwich crawl that was strategically placed after the saveur awards so that a lot of the bloggers who were in town for that could come. it's true that we didn't stick to breakfast sandwiches and that we also made room for pie and poutine, but how do you not do that when a crawl takes you past 4 & 20 and mile end? 

meh!

eggboy has just arrived in los angeles, so i am going to take him to meet eggslut on this fine foggy morning. 

happy monday, everyone!

-yeh!

for a list of all of the places where we went on the breakfast sandwich crawl, check out donny's post!

new york

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how fired am i if i never want to see another tater tot for as long i live?

will my casserole dishes disappear? will i have to return my duluth pack? will the midwest barf me up in the same way that i want to barf up all the tater tots that i ate yesterday???

(i'm sorry, eggboy!! i'm sorry, eggfamily!!)

like if there is one downside to overhauling your wardrobe and replacing all of the college-era fitted clothes with grownup loose-fitting flowy garments that say i'm a married lady with a 9pm bedtime, it's that you *cannot* properly gauge your tater tot intake during an official sunday morning tater tot hot dog crawl around williamsburg. a crawl that was bookended by fried pickles and cheese curds. 

and now i find myself researching barbecue places for my next stop: texas. oy vezmir! where is my green juice.

this is all to say that aside from yesterday's tater tot-induced belly ache, this past week in new york was many types of marvelous. much of it was spent in rehearsal for dog days, and the rest of it was spent eating, drinking, hugging, making a wedding cake, telling my friend jeremy how good he is at the maracas (omg he is so good, go see him play), and basking in the sweet sweet sounds of mahler and george crumb. i saw friends i hadn't seen in ten years, ate hummus nearly every day, and at one point i dumped out an entire jar of sprinkles in the new food52 office. dreams do come true.

now i am leaving new york now with a full heart, a bingo win, and a baggie of salty swedish licorice, which i need you to get next time you're in a sweden. (thanks, hannah!)

here's where i went (and loved) during this trip:

hummus place // i have to go here every time i'm in new york. in my dream kitchen, there is a tap with an endless flow of hummus place hummus.

brooklyn larder // this is the other place i have to go to every time i'm in new york. their vegetables, romesco, muhammura, pistachio cake, and panade are just about everything. i'd eat so many more vegetables if i lived closer to here.  

breads bakery // this is quickly becoming another place i have to go to every time i'm in new york. one day i'll get there early enough to snag a shakshuka focaccia before they sell out, but until then their marzipan rugelach and cheese twists will have my heart. 

miriam // another great hummus place, and their zucchini cakes are little cheesy nuggets of perfection. 

cafe mogador // more hummus! and tasty labne and bread and cauliflower and everything else. and one day i must go for brunch.  

maison kayser // rob introduced me to their financiers and they are so good, even with the embarrassment of not really knowing how to pronounce "financier."

don antonio // marian and i split a pizza with walnut cream, zucchini, and smoked mozzarella and i ate it like the end of the world was near. 

greene grape // i'm mad at myself for not going here more when i lived so close to it. i'm also sort of mad at myself for not getting a jeni's ice cream sandwich and a bottle of this really good looking kentucky soy sauce when i went there.

kent ale house // stop #1 on tater tot crawl. great chili cheese tots, really great fried pickles.

crif dogs // stop #2 on tater tot crawl. i am forever a spicy redneck type of gal, and their tots were extra crispy and salty.

grand national // stop #3 on tater tot crawl. good tots. a good pineapple-y hot dog. jell-o shots. sunday afternoon bingo.

burnside // stop #4 on tater tot crawl. we all ditched the tots for their unbelievably amazing fried cheese curds. like, they were so good, they would even rival the ones at the fargo street fair.

dough // mmmm salty chocolate fluffy donuts. *blushing face smiley emoji*

ok, see you in texas!!!!

-yeh!

lefse!

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the other day, i was at the town boutique trying on a sprinkle sweater when britney spears started singing from my phone and, mostly as a reaction to my embarrassment and wanting that ringtone to stop (eggboy, please change my ringtone, ok thanks!!!), i picked it up immediately. on the other end was his jolliness sam sifton, who said something to effect of, hey! i was thinking i'd come over to make some lefse! and i thought holy poopcakes!

what followed was one of the most memorable weeks of my life, but only after i could annoy poor miss ethel a few times because contrary to what you'd think based on her perfect performance on camera, she had been adamant about not even being in the presence of a reporter. and i was a pushy patty.

(it all worked out in the end because that sam can really charm.)

for a few days, we covered ourselves in flour and rolled in potato fields and it was all so unreal because when i lived in new york, i'd sit at my little desk and count the seconds until sam's restaurant reviews would come online, and then i'd savor every last word. i may have moved on to marilyn's turf, but sam will always be one of my favorites :) 

i loved having him and the amazing sweet video crew from the times here, they were my first visitors from brooklyn! after our shoot, we celebrated with venison and hotdish, and then eggboy and eggdad took the crew on a workshop tour. they got a little welding lesson and at some point i think sam drove a tractor, which was practice for when we hire him for beet harvest. hehe.

anywho, i've received the sweetest messages from so many of you guys about the video and i want to hug all of you!! if you haven't seen it, here it is! the recipe for ethel's lefse is here. happy lefse season, everyone!!

-yeh!

some of these photos were taken by one of the wonderful crew members, eric moran. check out his site, his photos are amazing!!!!!