Homemade take away holy grail - Chiko Rolls

What the, is a Chiko Roll I hear you non-Aussies ask. At it's simplest explanation it's an Australian version of an egg roll. Here's the wiki about it and it's history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiko_Roll 

Chiko rolls are one of the hardest things to find a recipe for so hard in fact, that I pieced this together from a couple of different recipes and the ingredients listed on the manufacturers website. Some recipes call for curry powder or Chinese 5 spice powder which shows you how "authentic" they are. Some even call for rice, which is not even remotely associated with them. And none of them call for barley, which is an ingredient. The hardest part of making these would be the pastry...it is an egg and flour pastry that I have not and honestly could not replicate. From what I can find out, the machine they use to make the pastry into the tubes is proprietary, so you just can't buy them. Most recipes call for spring roll pastry, which is way too thin. I used egg roll pastry which is thicker and works so much better, in fact, next time, I'm going to experiment with layering 2 sheets on top of each other, but for this version, I just used one.

Here is a picture of an original Chiko roll and the insides, courtesy of a mate in South Australia  named Tanya. So, thank you Tanya for ducking down the road, getting a Chiko roll and dissecting it for me!

So on to the recipe. I honestly believe that this is as close as you can get to the real thing.   

Chiko Rolls

2 tsp butter

1.5 cups green cabbage, finely shredded

1 celery stick, finely sliced

1 cup cooked barley

green beans

1 carrot, chopped

1 onion, cut in half and finely sliced

200g ground beef or cooked ground lamb

1 chicken stock cube

1 tbsp plain flour

2 tsp sugar

Salt

8 sheets egg roll pastry

1 egg, lightly beaten

Vegetable oil for frying

Remove the egg roll pastry from the fridge to defrost.

Cook the beef or lamb until browned and crumbly. I used lamb because I had it in the freezer and the original recipe used lamb or mutton, but now they are made with beef.

Melt the butter on a medium heat in a frying pan. Add the onion, cabbage, celery, green beans and carrot to the frying pan and cook until soft.

Add the beef and the chicken stock cube and cook until heated through. Add the flour, mix in and cook for a further 5 minutes.

Lay out 1 pastry sheet at a time, keeping the rest under a moist clean tea towel.

Lay 3 tablespoons of mixture at the bottom centre of the sheet and fold the sides in to the middle and roll.

Brush the end with egg to adhere to the pastry. Cover rolls with a moist tea towel. Repeat until all the mixture is used.

Blanch in 300F oil for 5 minutes, drain and allow to cool.

Fry in 350F oil until golden.

And here is the end result...awesomeness! 

This was really one of the hardest recipes I have done so far...not in the making, but just in getting the recipe. Now that I've done it, it won't be years before I have another Chiko Roll.

Enjoy.

Matt