Chinese Chicken Pockets

Connie misses the Jack in the Box. I'll explain shortly.

We love the free samples at Costco. We were there recently, and I was hungry, and the free samples totally saved me. Now, I know that hunger is the best spice, but the spring roll I had was incredible. So we got a box of the Ling Ling brand Chicken Spring Rolls, and even when I'm not that hungry, it's like Chinese crack. Bet ya can't eat just one! The only problem is, the outside isn't crispy.

The meat filling is tasty and has a bite to it. Reminds me of the Scottish meat pies they sell at the Renaissance Faire and Dickens Faire in the Bay Area. Those pies are great. They also remind Connie of the egg rolls at Jack in the Box. She misses those egg rolls. No Jack in the Box in Central Oregon.

So I went snurfing around the internet and came up with a few recipes for spring rolls, and I took the parts I liked from each and stirred thoroughly and came up with a recipe for spicy chicken filling. The beauty is you can use the same filling in meat tarts, spring rolls, ravioli, crepes, you name it. I made a batch last week, and tonight we made another, with some improvements. Connie made little turnovers with them, pictured here, and they were great.

I also made some sweet and sour dipping sauce, like you get in restaurants. Also from an internet recipe. The stuff looked nasty. It was soy sauce, and ketchup, and sugar, and vinegar and pineapple juice and water and cornstarch. After I'd mixed it all together, it was watery and had blobs of ketchup floating in it. The ingredients didn't sound like they had a chance of working together. I was afraid to taste it.

But I went ahead and completed the final step, heating it in the microwave. When it came out, the ingredients had blended and the cornstarch had made the sauce gelatinous, and it looked like sweet and sour sauce. I tried a little on one of our turnovers, and Wow! It actually tasted good.

Adventures in cooking.




Posted by Dave    Blog Tag: Chatter