Mixed Bag Egg Rolls

This duck and goose season has been a mixed bag. Warm temperatures, bright skies, and a general lack of “ducky weather” made this season less miserable than usual, but also less productive. We scratched out some ducks wherever we could, and shot our limit of geese as often as possible (one, in the zone we primarily hunt). We also got to explore some new spots, some that we had never had eyes on, and some just a few dozen yards from our old blinds. 

All that to say, we had a lot of fun, as usual. Getting up hours before sunrise, cold hands, sketchy boat rides in the dark, and outboard troubles are all part of it. We’ve had just about the right amount of “the duck suck” as Rachel likes to say- we’re a little tired, but already excited and planning for next season.

This egg roll recipe came about from a desire to stretch out the small amount of fowl protein we had acquired, but also as another experiment concerning making gizzards more broadly appealing. I love chewy fried gizzards, but Rachel isn’t a fan of the texture, and she’s in the majority on this one. 

Grinding the gizzards essentially neutralizes their texture, especially when mixed into other ground meat. And when you consider the size of a goose gizzard, it’s a significant amount of tasty protein that usually gets tossed.

For this egg roll recipe, I mixed roughly equal parts of deboned duck and goose legs (plus one or two shot up breasts) with gizzards and hearts, and pork trim. Then seasoned it with some classic egg roll flavors, carrots and dried mushrooms for texture, and rolled them up.

Not only are these egg rolls pretty damn tasty, they will make a small amount of waterfowl into a huge number of rolls. I started with about 1.5 pounds of trimmed meat, added the hearts, gizzards, and pork, and ended up rolling nearly 150 eggrolls. While there are only one of two people we hang out with that will hose fried gizzards with me, everyone loves these eggrolls.

This recipe is scaled out like all of our sausage recipes, because the process is essentially the same. Weigh the meat, giblets, and pork trim, combine all the remaining ingredients, grind and roll.

Mixed Bag Egg Rolls

Makes around 25 egg rolls per pound of mix

Ingredients:

Filling:

100% meat (1:1:1 waterfowl meat, waterfowl giblets, pork trim)

10% carrots, diced

1.5% dried mushrooms (shiitakes or maitake)

1.5% garlic, minced

1.5% salt

1% soy sauce

0.5% shaoxing cooking wine

0.25% sesame oil

0.25% black pepper

0.25% sugar

To roll: 

Egg roll wrappers- about 25 (one pack) per pound or half kilo of mix.

Method:

Combine meat, giblets, and pork trim with remaining ingredients, mix well, and grind through a fine plate.

Place ~2 tablespoons of the filling in the wrapper and roll up tight, just like making a tiny burrito. Seal the edges with a mix of beaten egg and water.

Fry until golden brown, 3-4 minutes

Serve with lettuce to wrap, nouc cham or tangy sambal sauce.

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