Another Week in Hong Kong: North Point Sweet Treats to Queue for

If you have ever been to Hong Kong, you will know that there are not just people and buildings everywhere, but also plenty of good food to be found.  In fact, fantastic fresh food is so prized in the city that they have a serious problem with food waste: apparently up to 40% of food there goes uneaten, and most of it ends up in the landfill.

You have a good chance of a great meal just wandering in to anywhere that looks popular, but one area I make sure I go to every time I visit is North Point, particularly if I have a craving for something subtly sweet. I already shared with you last year a shop selling Chinese dessert soups, which has queues going around the corner.  That is certainly a good option for a post-dinner treat if you are in the neighbourhood, but what if you are looking for a little snack earlier in the day? Then I would recommend these egg-based crispy snacks...

Eggettes, or gai daan jai (鷄蛋仔) @ LKK (利強記)

Eggettes in Hong Kong.

A typical streetside snack in Hong Kong is the eggette, or gai daan jai (鷄蛋仔, "little eggs"), basically a waffle which is shaped like a honeycomb pattern of oval balls. You can find it for sale in many places, but the only ones I have purchased which have been consistently fresh and crispy on the outside, with the centre variously hollow or soft and chewy, have been at a hole-in-the-wall vendor called Lee Keung Kee (利強記).

Often hollow with just a bit of dough on the inside, the best ones are served hot and crispy.

Although this shop now has eleven branches, I have only tried the one in North Point, which I assume is where the business became famous, since it's also known as "that place in North Point".

Eggette-making in action.

Stalls that sell eggettes invariably also sell a waffle which looks much like what you would get here.  Known as gaak jai beng (格仔餅, "grid-patterned biscuit"), the difference is that this waffle (which is not really crunchy like the eggettes) is served folded in half with the delicious sauces of butter, peanut butter, condensed milk and sugar.  The only problem I have with it is that it is impossible to eat without the sauces dripping everywhere!

Hong Kong style waffle, opened up to reveal the sauces inside.

* LKK North Point Eggettes (利強記北角雞蛋仔)
492 King’s Road, North Point, Hong Kong (香港北角英皇道492號)
+852 2590 9726

Opening hours:
Mondays to Sundays 10am - 11pm

Paper bag with LKK branch addresses.

Queue outside LKK. You purchase the waffles through the little window hiding amongst all the newspaper clippings.

Egg Rolls, or daan guen (蛋捲) @ Duck Shing Ho (德成號)

I have mentioned egg rolls, or daan guen (蛋捲, "egg roll"), from Duck Shing Ho (德成號) in my blog before, but had not actually planned to buy them until someone reminded me again.  Apparently, once upon a time, you could just walk into the shop and buy your crispy delights, but these days, they are so popular that you have to queue.

Crispy butter egg roll from Duck Shing Ho.

We ended up visiting the shop three times to make a purchase. The first time we turned up, it was a Sunday, and they were shut.

Attempt #1: closed on Sunday

The next time, we turned up too late. The business was still open, but all the boxes I saw inside were already pre-sold to other buyers.

Attempt #2: shop open, but sold out

Finally, we turned up at 9:30am as instructed (though some recommend coming at 9am), and joined the already long queue.  Unfortunately, they did not have any more tins of the coconut flavoured egg rolls, but I did get to try the original and butter versions. I preferred the latter, which were more golden in colour than the pale original egg rolls, as well as crumblier and, well, more buttery.  Yum!

Attempt #3: queueing in the morning, 25 minutes in.

By the way, the queue on the left is for payment, while the queue on the right is for collection. I didn't realise until I got to the front of the payment queue that there is a restriction of 4lbs per person.  What that means is that unless you turn up with a friend, you are only allowed four of the smaller 454g tins. Makes it fairer on the people at the back of the line, I guess.

Finally, I get to collect my tins of egg rolls!

I was surprised to see that the butter egg rolls were only made of "fresh eggs, sugar, flour (cereals containing gluten), butter".  No secret ingredient like the vanilla essence in the recipe I tried (or perhaps just conveniently omitted?). There are no preservatives and the tin is not sealed—lift the lid and all you see is a sheet of waxed paper before you get to the crispy rolls. I guess that the success of making these, as with eggettes, is highly dependent on technique.

[Added 3 June 2013: By contrast, the egg rolls produced in mainland China under the October Fifth Bakery Macau brand not only come in vacuum-sealed packages (the 150g box I bought had five packets containing two egg rolls each, as well as a packet of desiccant), but also lists the following ingredients: wheat flour, sugar, egg, margarine [tallow, palm oil, soybean oil, salt, milk powder, emulsifier (E222, E471, E477), flavour, antioxidant (E320, E307), colour (E160a)], lard [contains antioxidant (E320, E321)], raising agent [E500(ii), E450(i), E341(i)], flour treatment agent (E928)!
]

* Duck Shing Ho Homemade Egg Rolls (德成號家鄉雞蛋卷)
Ground floor, 64 Java Road, North Point, Hong Kong (香港北角渣華道64號地下)
+852 2570 5529/+852 2571 5049

Opening hours:
Mondays to Saturdays 9:30am - 7pm

Egg Rolls Part 3: Recipe for Handmade Sweet Flaky Egg Rolls (手工蛋卷)

As you may have gathered from my previous posts, I have a slight obsession with eggs.  I am also into snacks from Hong Kong. Given that I have already tried making egg tarts (蛋撻 daan taat), and you need a special waffle iron which I do not have to make eggettes (雞蛋仔 gai daan zai), it was only natural that I give egg rolls (蛋卷 daan gyun) a go. [Added 31May 2014: I have now purchased an eggette mould and you can read about it in my latest post.]

My first attempt at making egg rolls at home.

Finding a recipe to use was a real mission, as the ones that appeared in search results were generally for American Chinese egg rolls, or what I would call spring rolls (春捲 ceon gyun).  When I eventually did come across some, it turned out they were very similar to ice cream cone recipes, even though in my mind, the two are nothing alike.  Aside from the obvious shape difference, egg rolls are always pale yellow rather than golden brown, and their texture is more delicate than that of ice cream cones, which I consider harder and chewier.  Good egg rolls fall apart at the slightest little jolt.

My next problem was working out how to make them a uniform thinness, without a waffle iron, sandwich press, egg roll machine, or anything of the sort.  I found a blog where the egg rolls were simply cooked in a frying pan, after being spread with the back of a spoon, but the final product had an uneven colouring which I did not want to repeat.  In the end, I took inspiration from Monica's blog [added 9 Feb 2014: broken link to http://www.wretch.cc/blog/monicaca0531/15451180 removed], and made do with a frying pan and a saucepan to flatten my dough between.

Dough in frying pan, after I flattened it with the base of a saucepan.

While professionals use metal rods to wrap the egg rolls around, you can apparently simply use a chopstick. I chose to use the handle of a wooden spoon, which made for a thicker and rounder shape.  I also hoped the wood would draw the heat less quickly from my creations, thereby giving me more time to mould them before they set.

Wrapping an egg roll around the handle of a wooden spoon.  This one was a bit undercooked, as you can see the edges are still moist.

I had plenty of failures, of course.  Some rolls were too thick, did not cook through, and turned out more like crepes.  Some were too thin, and became brittle before I could bend them.  Some were simply cooked too long, and became a deep golden brown.  In fact, the majority of my egg rolls were failures, though they still tasted good.  Part of the problem, I think, was that I had to lift the circles out of the frying pan and put them onto my chopping board for rolling.  What you want is to roll them on the hot surface, so that they don't solidify so quickly.

Pile of rejects.  The sheets at the top set before I could roll them.  The rolls at the bottom were undercooked and did not set.  Hiding underneath all of these are the golden brown, "burnt" ones.

Once made, you have to keep your egg rolls in an airtight container.  Even the very thin, very crispy ones I created became soft after only a couple of hours when left out.  The thicker ones were easier to roll, because they did not cool down so quickly, but it was also difficult to draw all the moisture out of them to turn them crunchy.  Next time I might cheat, and put those ones in the oven afterwards to dry out.  I might even add a little baking powder, to see if that would help with the texture.

The thicker egg rolls were easier to roll.

Although far from perfect, I was pretty happy with how my egg rolls turned out, considering it was my first attempt and I only had makeshift equipment.  Here is how you can have a go too.

Handmade Egg Rolls (手工蛋卷)
Adapted from NTD Culinary, December 2009

Makes more or less 40 egg rolls, depending on size.

100g butter
100g icing sugar
4 eggs
1/8 tsp vanilla essence
100g plain flour

Extra Equipment

• Egg roll press, or substitute (in my case, two pans from the kitchen)
• Shaping rod, or substitute (such as a chopstick or handle of a wooden spoon)
• Cooling rack, or substitute (such as chopsticks arranged over a plate)
• Cotton gloves (optional, so you don't burn your fingers when rolling)

Method

1. Cream butter and sugar until nearly white (use your electric egg beater if you have one).
2. Beat in whole eggs, one at a time.
3. Add vanilla essence and mix.
4. Sift flour and stir through gently.
5. Let mixture rest for 15 minutes.
6. Heat egg roll maker or pans on low, and wipe/spray cooking surfaces with a thin layer of oil (you only need this so the first batch does not stick).
7. Place a tablespoon of mixture into the centre and press (if using a larger rectangular machine, you can put two dollops about 10cm apart, as per the videos in my previous post).  If using a cast-iron mould over a gas burner, cook for 30 seconds on each side.  It'll take some experimentation to work out the optimal thickness and cooking time.
8. Roll the disc up around your shaping rod, wait a couple of seconds for your egg roll to cool down and set, then transfer it to your cooling rack.
9. Repeat with the rest of the batter.
10. Once cool, store egg rolls in an airtight container.

Posts in this series

• Egg Rolls Part 1: Variations Around the World
• Egg Rolls Part 2: Sweet Flaky Egg Rolls (蛋卷, or Biscuit/Cookie/Wafer Rolls) 
• Egg Rolls Part 3: Recipe for Handmade Sweet Flaky Egg Rolls (手工蛋卷)

This post is part of Our Growing Edge, a monthly blogging event aimed at inspiring us to try new things.

Egg Rolls Part 2: Sweet Flaky Egg Rolls (蛋卷, or Biscuit/Cookie/Wafer Rolls)

Funny, you google "egg roll" and all you get are pages about American Chinese spring rolls.  But enter "hollow egg roll" and most of the search results are for egg roll machines, of the straw-shaped dessert variety, usually jazzed up with a chocolate swirl (here's an example).  Look up "phoenix egg rolls" or "鳳凰卷" and you get folded, pillow-shaped products from Macau, for instance from the Koi Kei bakery (and it's impressive to watch someone folding the rolls by hand).

For the record, what I wanted was to find a good recipe for making basic Chinese egg rolls, of the moderately sweet, flaky, tubular persuasion (as eaten in Hong Kong, Macau, and the southern parts of mainland China), by hand without the use of a machine, hot iron plates, or other specialist equipment.

Egg rolls from Duck Shing Ho factory, picture from buriki blog.  Look at those web-like layers!

It's interesting to see a machine in action of course:

and it's amazing to watch the skill of people making egg rolls in the street:

but it would be nice to know they can easily be made at home as well, even though nobody does.  (By the way, did you notice that in both of the videos above, they squirt two blobs of dough for each roll?  All the recipes I found just call for making one flattened circle.)

In the course of my research, I discovered that there are some very similar snacks outside of China. The ones in Malaysia and Singapore include coconut milk in the batter, and are also known as love letters, or kueh belanda. Made by the Peranakan Chinese for Chinese New Year, they often use moulds with intricate designs. Kuih kapit is much the same, but generally thinner and folded into quarters rather than rolled into a tube. Both versions may be made with rice flour, wheat flour, or a mixture of both. [Added 27 April 2014: I have just come across the Thai equivalent of egg rolls, tong muan (ทองม้วน), which also uses coconut milk, but are smaller, almost bite-sized.]

Love letters and mould from an online trader.

The Norwegians have a Christmas cookie called krumkake, which has similar patterning, but is rolled into a cone rather than a cylinder.  The batter may be spiced with cardamom or nutmeg, and they are sometimes eaten filled with whipped cream and fruit, like a brandy snap.

Norwegian krumkake with decorative iron and shaping cone, from Lefse Time.

Much more surprising to me is that the Spanish, and by extension the Filipinos, have a dessert called barquillos, or neules in the Catalan language, which is basically identical to the Chinese egg roll. Some make them with whole egg, some just with the whites, some just with the yolks, and some add lemon rind, but apart from minor differences, they seem to be the same thing.  The Filipinos have also branched out into other flavours, for instance ube (purple yam) and pandan.

Spanish neules, from Gastronomía y Cía website.

Coloured barquillos in the Philippines, photo from bucaio blog.  Flavours shown are strawberry, ube, pandan, coconut, chocolate and goat's milk.

While all the Chinese recipes contain eggs, butter/lard, flour and sugar, there is some variation between them. The version on Cooking of China makes use of "sweet potato mud", which I assume is kumara purée, as well as milk. In Kitty Choi's Foundation Dim Sum Making cookbook, she adds milk, coconut milk, dessicated coconut, custard powder and baking powder. Other recipes throw in a sprinkling of salt and sesame.

What I am most intrigued by is how the best egg rolls have that rough, lace-like surface.  Is it a result of the ingredients, or the cooking technique?  This forum post proved to me that no fancy machine is required to obtain a beautiful texture, but the photo accompanying every recipe I found presents egg rolls with a smooth surface.  I guess I just have to give it a try myself, and see.


Posts in this series

• Egg Rolls Part 1: Variations Around the World
• Egg Rolls Part 2: Sweet Flaky Egg Rolls (蛋卷, or Biscuit/Cookie/Wafer Rolls) 
• Egg Rolls Part 3: Recipe for Handmade Sweet Flaky Egg Rolls (手工蛋卷)

Egg Rolls Part 1: Variations Around the World

Americans might as well be speaking a different language. I learnt this the hard way (as Genie of Bunny. Eats. Design. reminded me) when I blindly followed a recipe for chilli sin carne, and dutifully emptied two cups of tomato sauce into what, up until that point, was a delicious pot of beans and vegetables. In case you were wondering, what we call tomato sauce is similar to what Americans would call "ketchup".  My promising meal became a disgusting, sweet and sickly mess.

NZ English	American English	Description
tomato sauce	ketchup	Seasoned tomato purée - sweet and tangy, frequently eaten with hot chips and burgers.
pasta sauce	tomato sauce	Seasoned tomato purée - savoury, frequently eaten with meatballs and pasta.

It's not so bad when they use a completely different term altogether, like "zucchini" instead of "courgette", or "rutabaga" instead of "swede" (actually, I thought "aubergine" for "eggplant" and "mangetout" for "snow pea" were also American expressions, but apparently they are from British English). What really gets things confusing is when a word you are familiar with gets used to mean something else.  Here are some more examples:

NZ English	American English	Description
scone	biscuit	Soft quickbread made of flour and baking powder or soda, frequently eaten with butter and jam.
biscuit	cookie	Sweet, hard and dry baked product, with many variations, such as chocolate biscuits and gingernuts.
jam	jelly	Sweet spread or preserve made from fruit and sugar boiled to a thick consistency.
jelly	jello	Translucent fruit-flavoured dessert made to set using gelatine.

So What's an Egg Roll?

It wasn't until I tried to look for a recipe for "egg rolls" that I realised how many different things the term can mean.  Suppose I tell you that I am going to be bringing egg rolls for shared lunch tomorrow.  What would you expect to see?  Something sweet or savoury, crispy or soft?

A. 

Cooked egg (boiled and mashed, or fried) in a bread roll, which has been sliced in half.
Maybe something like a bacon and egg roll, minus the bacon.

Recipe: Ham and Egg Roll (More Than Words blog)
Recipe: Egg Mayo & Watercress Rolls (Good Food Magazine, April 2011) [Link added 22 June 2016 to replace broken link for Egg Mayo Mini Rolls (http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/5765/egg-mayo-mini-rolls, BBC Good Food - Olive Magazine, April 2008)]

B.

Cooked egg (baked whole, or mashed) in a hollowed out bread roll.

Recipe: Baked Beans, Bacon and Egg Rolls (Woman's Day magazine) [Link updated 22  June 2016 from http://recipefinder.msn.co.nz/article.aspx?id=8284773]
Recipe: Baked Egg Rolls (Modaretto blog)
[Updated 22 June 2016: removed broken link to Sesame Egg Rolls (http://recipefinder.msn.co.nz/recipes/womensweekly/742983/sesame-egg-rolls, Australian Women's Weekly magazine)]

C.

An omelette which has been rolled up, with or without a filling such as meat and/or vegetables.

Recipe: Baked Cheesy Egg Roll (Allrecipes.co.uk)
Recipe: Korean Egg Roll - 계란말이 Gyeran Mari (K Food Addict blog)
Recipe: Egg Roll with Fish Paste (Elinluv blog)

D.

A spring roll, which became popularised as egg rolls in America.  According to Dear Dim Sum [Updated 22 June 2016 to remove broken link to http://deardimsum.com/2011/04/12/spring-roll-or-egg-roll-%E6%98%A5%E5%8D%B7%E8%BF%98%E6%98%AF%E8%9B%8B%E5%8D%B7/], spring rolls are those of the soft rice paper variety to Americans, but I'm not so sure—spring rolls are always deep-fried variety in my book.  Otherwise, they would be called summer rolls or fresh rolls.

Recipe: My Mother's Famous Chinese Egg Rolls (Steamy Kitchen blog)
Recipe: Egg Rolls (Sara Moulton, Food Network)

E.

A sweet, flaky, tube-shaped roll eaten in Hong Kong and the southern parts of China.  The most famous in Hong Kong are those produced by Duck Shing Ho, where people queue as early as 4-5 months in advance to get their supplies for Chinese New Year!  (Not sure if something was lost in translation, but it looks like you can buy an egg roll machine [Updated 22 June 2016 to remove broken link to http://www.cloudol.net/goods/6137/%E7%87%83%E6%B0%94%E8%9B%8B%E5%8D%B7%E6%9C%BA] for less than 2,000 Chinese yuan, or a ridiculously cheap NZ$40!)

Recipe: Love Letters / Egg Rolls - 鸡蛋卷 (wery nice blog)
Recipe: Hand Made Egg Roll 香脆手工蛋卷 (more than bread blog) [Link added 22 June 2016 to replace broken link for Biscuit (Egg) Rolls - 手工蛋卷 (http://www.wretch.cc/blog/limpepsi/24131248, limpepsi's blog)]

F.

Fried egg wrapped inside a paratha flatbread, a street food originating in Kolkata, India.

Recipe: Kolkata Egg Roll (Bong Mum's Cookbook blog)
Recipe: Egg Roll: a Wrap Around the Streets of Kolkata (Food Wanderings blog)

G.

Chopped boiled egg, rolled up in sandwich bread, like an asparagus roll.

Recipe: Chicken and Egg Rolls (Mountain Bread.com.au) [Updated 22 June 2016 to remove broken link to http://www.mountainbread.com.au/cgi-bin/index.pl?menu_id=56]
Recipe: Egg Roll Sushi (http://food.ninemsn.com.au)

H.

Hard-boiled egg, wrapped in flour and/or meat and deep-fried, similar to a scotch egg.  The Nigerian version is sweet.

Recipe: Nigerian Egg Roll (All Nigerian Recipes.com)
Recipe: Sri Lankan Egg Rolls (Peter Kuravita, SBS.com.au) [Link updated 22 June 2016 from http://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipe/13407/egg_rolls]
Recipe: Stuffed Egg Rolls (Spice India Online blog)

---

My New Zealand workmates had no idea what an egg roll was, but suggested it could be like an asparagus roll (G. above) or perhaps a bacon and egg roll without the bacon (A.).  Americans I spoke to didn't think they could mean anything other than spring rolls (D.).  To be honest, the first time I heard of the spring roll meaning was when I tried to google "egg roll recipes", so it's surprising to me how difficult it is to find anything about any other kind of egg roll.

What does an egg roll mean to you?  Are there other meanings than what I have listed above?

Posts in this series

• Egg Rolls Part 1: Variations Around the World
• Egg Rolls Part 2: Sweet Flaky Egg Rolls (蛋卷, or Biscuit/Cookie/Wafer Rolls) 
• Egg Rolls Part 3: Recipe for Handmade Sweet Flaky Egg Rolls (手工蛋卷)