Whilst respecting the gourmet cuisine on these pages, I feel the thread is incomplete (unless I missed it) without recognising the Chiko Roll.
Wikipedia - Chiko Roll
There. Fixed. You're welcome.And I've just solved the question of lunch today.
From Wiki:
Australian Chiko Roll
The Chiko Roll is an Australian savoury snack invented by Frank McEncroe, inspired by the Chinese spring roll and first sold in 1951 as the "Chicken Roll" despite not actually containing chicken.[1] The snack was designed to be easily eaten on the move without a plate or cutlery. Since 1995 they have been owned by Simplot Australia.
A Chiko Roll's filling is primarily cabbage and barley, as well as carrot, green beans, beef, beef tallow, wheat cereal, celery and onion. This filling is partially pulped and enclosed in a thick egg and flour pastry tube designed to survive handling at football matches. The roll is typically deep-fried in vegetable oil.
You just reminded me of a particular idiosyncrasy in Mexican food. A "quesadilla" in Mexican Spanish refers to a Calzone type of finger food where you fold a soft maize Tortilla around some filling usually meat, potato or vegetable with a sauce of any kind and chees, or only cheese as a filling, but *always* containing cheese (cheese="queso" in Spanish, the "u" is mute) ), hence the name, "QUESadilla." An alternative preparation is to use two wheat flour Tortillas and make a sandwich type of arrangement. In either case the Quesadilla is cooked on a griddle which I guess is not far from the definition of frying, as you can use as much or little oil as you may want. In either case, the goal is to crisp up the outside and melt the cheese.
Now, in Mexico City, however and ONLY in Mexico City, Quesadillas refer to the very same arrangement but with no cheese! The filling can be anything, but if you don't explicitly ask for the cheese, you will not get it! It leads to the redundant plea" Give me a Quesadilla with Queso... "
The Chiko Roll seems more similar to the American" Egg Roll" which is wrapped in a crispy shell, to be filled with the usual cabbage filling of the Chinese Spring Roll, but the Chiko Roll filling is described as all-vegetable. I was wondering if you have to do the same in Australia?... "Give me a Chiko Roll with chicken"
To make matters more interesting, Egg Rolls do not contain any egg, whatsoever, thus making the Chicko Roll a better Egg Roll...
The origins of the dish are unclear and remain disputed. Egg rolls are closely related to, but distinct from, the spring rolls served in mainland China, and were first seen in the early 20th century in the United States. An early reference to egg rolls appeared in a 1917 Chinese recipe pamphlet published in the United States, but the dish does not resemble the modern egg roll. The 1917 recipe described a meat and vegetable filling wrapped in an egg omelet, panfried, and served in slices,[6] similar to Gyeran-mari.
Andrew Coe, author of “Chop Suey: A Cultural history of Chinese food in the United States", has stated that the modern American egg roll was probably invented at a Chinese restaurant in New York City in the early 1930s, by one of two chefs who both later claimed credit for the creation: Lung Fong of Lung Fong's, or Henry Low of Port Arthur. According to Coe, Low's recipe, printed in a 1938 cookbook, Cook at Home in Chinese included “bamboo shoots, roast pork, shrimp, scallions, water chestnuts, salt, MSG, sugar, palm oil, and pepper,” but notably did not include cabbage, which is the main filling ingredient in modern egg rolls.
Egg rolls do not typically contain egg in the filling,[8] and the wheat flour wrapper may or may not contain egg.[9] In addition to the disputed origin of the dish, it is unclear how the word "egg" appeared in the name, since the predominant flavor in American egg rolls is cabbage, not eggs. A 1979 Washington Post article speculated that the Chinese word for "egg" sounds very similar to the Chinese word for "spring",[10] but this theory has not been widely adopted.
So apparently Egg rolls have no egg in them... Can you ask for a "Egg Roll with egg??
I prefer my Chiko Rolls with chicken, my Quesadillas with queso and my Egg Rolls with egg!!
