Peanut butter in eggrolls?

My wife and I enjoy the standard, nonfancy chinese food plentiful just about anywhere. Eggrolls, wanton soup, general's chicken, etc.

But why does everywhere in chicago put peanut butter in the eggrolls?

It is quite a big deal for us as my wife is allergic to peanuts. (I can't complain because I'll get both eggrolls when we go out, but it is kind of a drag to see her staring hungrily at me as I dig into them.)

Where we grew up, in Detroit, the chinese food is mostly the same, including the eggrolls, but never any peanut butter.

Is there anyone in Chicago who makes standard eggrolls with no peanut butter? Any idea why this practice exists?

Thanks,
Chris.

Peanut butter is sometimes used to seal eggrolls to hold them together before frying. I always thought most places used raw egg to seal the eggrolls. Maybe there is some health department issue with using raw egg in Chicago so they use PB instead. Many, if not most Chinese restaurants use peanut oil in cooking. Is she not allergic to that?

I personally enjoy the eggrolls made with peanut butter.

I too, thought this was a Chicago centric phenomenon until several years ago, after posting a question about these over on the other board, I was informed by west coast folks about areas of CA where this type of eggroll is also common. Who knew?

But, I would be surprised to see peanut butter used as "glue" or to replace eggs as in an "eggwash" as d4v3 suggests. If that line of thinking is correct, then all Chicago restaurants and bakeries must be egg free???

Recently at the club, for a very large and over the top social event, the parents insisted that we hand make for their reception the eggroll recipe, containing peanut butter, from The Antoinette Pope Cookbook, now out of print, rather than using our normally acceptable non-peanut butter version.

Cathy2, help me here. Wasn't AP an early Chicago tv food personality?

A friend with a copy ($150 for a used copy on EBay) faxed me a copy of the recipe and saved the day.

Other members, equally passionate about these type eggrolls have requested that for their events, we obtain them from their favorite Northside places.

I would also love to hear more on this subject.

d4v3 wrote:most Chinese restaurants use peanut oil in cooking. Is she not allergic to that?

I don't think the allergen is in the peanut oil. So it's safe.

Evil Ronnie wrote:Cathy2, help me here. Wasn't AP an early Chicago tv food personality?

I'm hardly Cathy2, but I can tell you that Antoinette Pope and, more specifically her husband Francois were early restaurant/TV chefs in Chicago and responsible for launching me on my food obsession. I think they used to have a 15 - 30 minute show that ran at lunchtime against the forerunner to the Bozo Show, Lunchtime Little Theater. I would come home from shcool for lunch and my mother would turn on LLT for me and I would promptly change the channel to watch Francois Pope.

Antoinette Pope Cookbook

Evil Ronnie,

Antoinette with her husband Francois ran the Antoinette Pope School of Fancy Cookery. They were big time Chicago celebrities with a television show back in the 1950's, though their cooking school predates WW2.

I just ran to grab a copy of one of their books, which I always buy whenever I come across one at a rummage, garage or house sale for much, much less than $150. Eggrolls were not in the index until I looked for Chinese, then I found their recipe for Cantonese Egg Rolls, which I have adapted.

It begins by advising to purchase 7 inch square noodle dough squares from Chinese noodle factories or bakeries in Chinatown. They noted:

Chinese cooks ordinarily dip these rolls into a thin fritter batter before they are fried the first time, but it is not necessary. They are more crisp if not dipped into batter.

The ingredients stated are:

1/2 pound fresh shrimp (with shells)
1 cup cooked pork, veal or beef, finely chopped
1 cup celery, chopped very fine
1/2 cup Chinese water chestnuts (measure after peeling), chop (not too fine)
1/2 cup fresh green onion and stems, chopped very fine, or 2 tablespoons finely chopped dry onion
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon white seasoning (C2- msg?)
1/8 teaspoon dark Oriental seasoning (C2 - 5 spice powder?)
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 tablespoon peanut butter

They gently boil the shell-on shrimp for 7-8 minutes, though only 5 minutes if medium. Let the shrimp cool in (cooking?) water until almost cool. Shell, devein and chop shrimp into very small pieces, which should yield 1 cup of shrimp.

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well. If it is too dry, then add a little more melted butter. Mixture should be moist though not too wet or dry.

Each egg roll was filled with 1/4 cup filling yielding a six inch long roll, whose edges were painted with beaten egg to seal. (They had more elaborate instructions, but I think the filling combination was what interested us the most.)

Their cooking method is in two steps:
1. As eggrolls are completed, they are cooked in peanut oil heated to 360 to 375 degrees, to fry until very lightly colored and set. Refrigerate if they are not served within an hour.
2. If refrigerated, then remove eggrolls 30 minutes before serving. Heat peanut oil to 360 to 375 degrees, then fry until golden brown and crisp, which should take 5 minutes.

Interestingly they do not suggest serving with any sauces, though the prior recipe of Cantonese Fried Shrimp is served with Sweet Sour Sauce or Hot Sauce, which was principally catchup (sic) and dry mustard.

***

I was recently at Kow Kow on Cicero Avenue, which made an eggroll pretty close to the Pope's recipe. In fact it seemed to have been dipped in something before frying, which may be the fritter batter the Pope's referred to.

***

While SteveZ is hardly I , I am of a slightly younger generation who watched Bozo. (BTW - my sister was selected for the Grand Prize Game, though didn't participate.) I watched Julia Child on Channel 11 at noon for years when my interest in Bozo faded.

SteveZ - what station were the Pope's on?

Regards,

Evil Ronnie wrote:But, I would be surprised to see peanut butter used as "glue" or to replace eggs as in an "eggwash" as d4v3 suggests.

The following is a quote from the allergy advisor website:

"Some oriental restaurants use peanut butter to "glue down" the ends of egg rolls to stop them from coming apart in the cooking process."

http://www.allergyadvisor.com/educational/nov2002_2.htm

As far as using PB as part of the actual "stuffing", that is a new one on me. But, I now see some recipes do suggest it, but only in very small amounts. I suspect it is more of a binding agent than for flavor. The suspicion that there might be some problem with using raw egg was just conjecture that it might affect storage of uncooked eggrolls.

The best example of peanut butter flavored eggrolls in Chicago remains Pekin House on Devon. They've been serving them that way since the '50s. They used to, but no longer, serve the same recipe at their sister restaurant Far East on Diversey before that restaurant burned to the ground and was resurrected as a new "concept". They are greasy and peanut butter delicious. If you go to Pekin House to check out the excellent eggrolls, DO NOT order any other food at this restaurant. They have turned into a one dish wonder. You've been warned.

C2 "Cooking With Francois Pope" was on channel 7 (known at that time as WBKB, and owned by Balaban & Katz of movie theater fame). I'm 86% sure of that. If not, it was on channel 5 (then known as WNBQ).

I know this thread started out as trying to avoid peanut butter infused eggrolls, so for the OP, take this as a warning. For the rest, enjoy!

Pekin House
2311 W. Devon
Chicago, IL
773-465-1630

Far East
514 W. Diversey
Chicago, IL
773-935-6550

stevez wrote:The best example of peanut butter flavored eggrolls in Chicago remains Pekin House on Devon. They've been serving them that way since the '50s.

Steve,

On your suggestion I've tried Pekin House's eggroll, good, though the filling is a bit dense and as your mention, and they are slightly oily. Though I can easily see how, if one grew up eating these, especially with the peanut butter component, one could develop the occasional craving.

Pekin House Egg Roll

Enjoy,
Gary

Cathy,
I know I'm an old lady and memory sometimes fail, but my memory of the Popes was on channel 5.
Paulette

HI,

The reason I was inquiring about the Pope's channel because I'm interested in seeing one of their programs. I know WGN gave quite a bit of their archive to the Radio and Broadcasting Museum.

I have made a few half-hearted attempts to learn more including trying a search on their website. What I have not yet accomplished is talking to real live person over there. I guess I will wait until they reopen which should be later this year I believe.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:The reason I was inquiring about the Pope's channel because I'm interested in seeing one of their programs. I know WGN gave quite a bit of their archive to the Radio and Broadcasting Museum.

The person to contact at the Museum of Broadcast Communications is Bruce DuMont, although as you said they are not presently open. That might make the archives pretty inaccessable. I have no reason to doubt Paulette's memory that the show was shown on Channel 5. Maybe you should give them a call, although when they moved their studios out of the Merchandise Mart, a lot of that old stuff was tossed or (hopefully) donated to the MBC.

I swear Steve Z. and I were twins separated at birth. Our paths to the culinary world took many of the same turns. I too gave up Lunchtime Little Theatre in order to start on my interest of cooking. I have to agree with my twin that they were on channel 7. As a footnote, the Pope cookbook has the best chicken tetrazzini recipe, ever. (Oh, god, did I just open a can of worms?) So good is this tetrazzini and so rich that I may as well just put it on my thighs instead of eating it.

stevez wrote:"Cooking With Francois Pope" was on channel 7 (known at that time as WBKB, and owned by Balaban & Katz of movie theater fame). I'm 86% sure of that. If not, it was on channel 5 (then known as WNBQ).

In Francois Pope’s Gourmet Dining Guide: Chicagoland’s Top Restaurants from 1955 there’s an ad for the cookbook. You could mail order it for $3.95 from WBKB-TV. So that would indicate the cooking show, Creative Cookery, was on Channel 7 (at least around 1955).

It might not be so simple, however. From the forward to Gourmet Dining Guide it sounds like Francois Pope had been doing a televised cooking show since 1950 when WBKB-TV on Channel 7 didn’t exist. Until 1953 WBKB-TV used Channel 4. So maybe in the early years Pope was on Channel 4 (or perhaps a different station entirely). You can take a look here for an excellent discussion of the complicated early history of WBKB.

Rene G wrote:

stevez wrote:"Cooking With Francois Pope" was on channel 7 (known at that time as WBKB, and owned by Balaban & Katz of movie theater fame). I'm 86% sure of that. If not, it was on channel 5 (then known as WNBQ).

In Francois Pope’s Gourmet Dining Guide: Chicagoland’s Top Restaurants from 1955 there’s an ad for the cookbook. You could mail order it for $3.95 from WBKB-TV. So that would indicate the cooking show, Creative Cookery, was on Channel 7 (at least around 1955).

It might not be so simple, however. From the forward to Gourmet Dining Guide it sounds like Francois Pope had been doing a televised cooking show since 1950 when WBKB-TV on Channel 7 didn’t exist. Until 1953 WBKB-TV used Channel 4. So maybe in the early years Pope was on Channel 4 (or perhaps a different station entirely). You can take a look here for an excellent discussion of the complicated early history of WBKB.

The Channel 4 days of WBKB are before my time. I would have been watching the show on Ch. 7.

I grew up in the Chinese-American chop suey business in Chicago. In my close extended family alone, we had about six restaurants in the city - all now closed or sold. Peanut butter was/is used as a flavoring and binding ingredient. It was not common for it to be used to seal the wrapper - that was done with a simple egg wash. Peanut butter used that way would be the exception because it's not economical nor easy - two factors that rule the business. Raw egg/egg wash is not a concern in sealing/storage because egg rolls are partially fried prior to storage. It is not unique to the Chicagoland area - as we had family members in New York and Boston who also used PB. This was a recipe passed on from one restaurant family to another. A batter dip is also not common - see the ruling factors above. Another little known fact is that the old recipe had no meat product other than chicken skin. Chicken skin was once given away free by meat suppliers - until they caught on that their Chinese customers were turning a good profit from their scrap and then they started charging for it.

My Japanese mother's secret ingredient in her egg rolls was peanut butter. One of the restaurants she worked at early in her career was a Chinese restaurant in Uptown called the Mandarin. The Mandarin was frequented by Japanese-Americans in the 60s because they did not use lard in their cooking (according to what she told me). Whether she learned how to make egg rolls here or someplace later, I don't know, but peanut butter was never used to seal the egg roll nor egg wash. A little dollop of peanut butter was added to the filling mixture for flavor. We used plain water to seal the egg rolls.

As a wee young hippie, I once was part of a tiny group that would earn cash by rolling eggrolls for a local Chinese restaurant. We would stop by the restaurant's back door and they would give us a big plastic buspan full of chopped eggroll ingredients, a stack of eggroll wrappers and a jar of peanut butter. We would take this back to the pad, roll the eggrolls at the kitchen table. We'd stack the finished eggrolls back into the pan, deliver them back to the restaurant and get paid out the back door.

One time, we put the buspan of ingredients in the back seat of someone's car and, well, one thing led to another and we did not go back to that car for several days whereupon we discovered the extremely fragrant mixture decomposing in its buspan. Needless to say, we never went back to that Chinese restaurant. Sometimes I think about what they did for eggrolls that night.

So how many things wrong can you find in this picture!? Ugh. The utter lack of refrigeration and sanitation and ....

Anyway, back on topic, we used the peanut butter as a flavoring. First, swipe the wrapper with a nice-sized gob of peanut butter, then pile on the raw veggies. Then roll. The peanut butter also helped anchor the veggies onto the wrapper so that even slightly-impaired round-eyes can roll a reasonable facsimile of a real eggroll.

My family's restaurant never used peanut butter and it was tasty and addictive. We owned restaurants in Minnesota. We would cook the vegetables, drain the liquid from the veggies. Then cook the vegetables with the meat, season and cool. Finally, we'd roll the cooled, seasoned ingredient and seal with an egg mixture. As you can imagine, this was very tedious and took about 2-3 days to complete. We did precook them so that the egg mixture issue never came up.

I don't think peanut butter is necessary in getting the perfect egg roll. Of course I'm bias, but those were the best egg rolls, ever.

Not that it's my favorite Cantonese/American restaurant but The Breakers in Crystal Lake serve very peanut buttery eggrolls.They're kinda thin but very crispy.They come sliced like at Pekin House.I ate four of them on our last visit plus a Hong Kong steak that melted in my mouth.I love the peanut butter taste in their eggrolls.The Breakers is on Rt 14 just W of town.

csamp wrote:Is there anyone in Chicago who makes standard eggrolls with no peanut butter?

To get back to the OPs request of egg rolls without peanut butter:

I had some crispy, not too greasy egg rolls from Korean-Chinese restaurant Great Seas just last night. Not a hint of peanut butter.

Great Seas
3254 W Lawrence
(773) 478-9129
No delivery

Best,
Michael

eating while walking wrote:Big American-Chinese food fan here. The greasier and more-you-can-eat, the better. When I'm in a Chinese restaurant my happiness is directly proportionate to the number of steam tables I see. You get the idea. Anyway I just moved to Chicago and I have noticed that a lot of Chinese takeout egg rolls seem to have some kind of nutty paste in them, perhaps peanut butter or sesame paste. This is something I've never seen in other American-Chinese places around the country. Could it be unique to Chicago? and is it widespread enough to label the peanut butter egg roll "Chicago style"?

Moderator note: lost the original eating while walking post in a merge accident, with apologies; quoted above.

EWW - here is an older but insightful Chowhound thread on the topic:

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/114040