Cha gio - Vietnamese Egg rolls

It would be a shame for me to not include this recipe in my favorite recipes website.  Whenever I bring up Vietnamese egg rolls, my husband always has a story to tell.  When Dan met me, he had all sorts of questions for me.  He didn't believe that I grew up in Vietnam for half of my life.  With no accent he thought that what I meant was I was there for a visit 12 years ago.  He thought that my love for food meant just Vietnamese food but soon after learned that I just love all good food, no matter the region.  Growing up in Phoenix he felt like he doesn't know what good food to share from that region, but he was eager to learn what I've got to share.  He said still to this day, "that's why I married you.  You bring so much spice into my life that I lack".  Yes SPICE, that is the key for flavor.  Vietnamese food is all about the flavor not quantity.  Of course, we love quantity too because Vietnamese are little hobbits that like to eat all day.  First time he met my parents it was 11:00 at night.  They picked us up from the PHL airport and when we came home, a big bowl of Pho was served along with Vietnamese egg rolls.  Dan cringed his eyes when he saw the egg rolls.  He has had some not so good experiences with eggrolls, but they were Chinese eggrolls and they were filled with cabbage, hardly any meat, and usually fried in the worst egg roll wrappers.  I assured him that Vietnamese eggrolls have no cabbage, have lots of meat, and very tasty.  He took one bite and froze.  He said, "wow your mom's eggrolls are AMAZING!"  Yes, yes they are!

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground pork
• 1/2 lb of shrimp, chopped up (optional)
• 1 medium taro root or potato if you don't have taro, shredded (1/2 cup)
• ⅔ cup chopped onion
• ⅛ cup wood ear mushrooms, chopped (optional 
• ½ cup of carrots, shredded
• ½ cup bean thread noodles or clear vermicelli noodles
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 egg yolk (to help hold wraps together.  I work the white into the ingredients)

 
 Start rolling!!  Make sure you don't add too much in each wrap so that they don't take too long to fry and burn on the outside but not cooked in the center.  Drop them in hot oil and fry them up until they are golden brown!