Jamaica cleaned up this year at the Olympics with 4 Gold, 4 Silver, and 4 Bronze medals…Trinidad and Tobago did well also with 1 gold and 4 bronze!

Yesterday’s post was real serious when it came to the Olympics, but today, we are taking a lighter look at the games.

The kids and the hubby headed to Best Buy, so I decided to stay home and have my own little competition while I made dinner.  I called it the Egg Roll-ympics – Jamaica vs. Trinidad.  The Olympics might be over – but I felt like I needed to have the excitement of the games around just a little longer… Tonight it was Jerk Chicken Egg rolls vs. Curry Chicken Egg Rolls!

According to the kids, it was a tie… try it at your house and you be the judge. So here are the things to know about me before you try this:

Photo by Eva Wilson for SocaMom.com

• I am not a chef.  Never have been.  I mess around in the kitchen, and sometimes the food comes out nice.
• I don’t measure anything really.  That pencil and pad in the photo, that’s mine.  I cook, and I write what I add/do as I go. Nothing super fancy. I have my family favorites that I make that I can’t begin to tell you how much of what to put in where. Testing is no different. My taste buds are going to be different from yours, so I give you the ingredients, approximate amounts, and you decide what is too much or not enough.
• Please share what you think, the variations you made, and how it turned out for you with the community.  This recipe is a starting point.

Whew, all my disclaiming is done.  Chefs take your mark…

Here’s what you will need:

Egg Roll wrapping

Roasted Geera

Onion

Garlic

Ginger

Salt

Sugar

Mango

Cole Slaw or Broccoli Salad Mix

Curry

Jerk Seasoning

Rice Vinegar

Vegetable Oil

Black Pepper

Pepper Sauce (optional)

2 small chicken breasts

Confession Time – I didn’t really measure anything at all for this… these measurements are my best guesses.  Start to finish, it took about an hour.

First, I cut the chicken breast into very small pieces.  For the jerk, I added about a tablespoon of Grace’s Mild Jerk Seasoning, a tablespoon of vegetable oil, 1/4 tsp of salt, covered it with plastic wrap, and set it in the fridge.

Next, I cut the second chicken breast into small pieces, fried the curry (about 1.5 tablespoons) with some onion (1/4 small onion – minced), garlic, geera (1 tsp), and 1 tbsp of vegetable oil.  I added the chicken, then a little water and 1/2 tsp of salt.  After that, I let the water cook out.

Once the chicken was done, I washed the slaw (it says pre-washed and ready to eat, but… I wash it again anyway), and stir fried it real quick with black pepper, salt, vegetable oil, a little rice vinegar, and some ginger – just to soften the cabbage a little. Then I set it aside to cool.

By now the egg roll wrappers are almost defrosted, so took some frozen mango chunks, about a cup of sugar, water, salt, rice vinegar, geera, and ground ginger and brought it to a boil in a small saucepan.  Once the mango was soft, I transferred the mixture to the Magic Bullet, and mixed it until it was smooth.  Then I put it back in the sauce pan to simmer.  This is the sweet dipping sauce (the family LOVED the mango sauce!).  You can add pepper sauce if you’d like.

Now it is time to wrap the egg rolls.  I had a tiny bowl of water nearby to seal the egg rolls with.

I don’t have a deep fryer, so I filled a saucepan about 1/3 full of vegetable oil, and set it on medium heat.

I laid the wrapping on a plate in front of me so that it looked like a diamond.  Since I wasn’t sure how the kids would react if the egg rolls were spicy, I made several veggie only rolls.  I put about 2 tablespoons of the veggie filling about 2/3 from the top, folded over the tip closest to me, rolled it up tightly about halfway, folded in the sides, and continued to roll.  I dipped my fingers in the water bowl and wet the top end to seal the roll.  After I finished 3 of them, I’d put them in the pan of oil to fry until they were a golden brown.

They came out fantastic!  I made 18 egg rolls, and there were no leftovers.  Even baby girl had seconds (and she NEVER has seconds).

If you try it out, share what you added, how you did it, and how it turned out in the comments.  I’d love to hear your variation!  You can even add another country to the competition if you’d like…