Pizza Egg Rolls

Directions

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   Start by heating the olive oil in a skillet or pot on medium-high heat.
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   Once heated, add the Italian sausage.
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   Cook until browned, crumbling it with a spatula along the way.
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   Once browned toss in the garlic, pepperoni and shallots and cook an additional 5 minutes or until the shallot has sweated through.
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   Add 3/4 cup of marinara sauce, stir, and then set aside to let cool.
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   Once your mixture has cooled add the shredded cheese and mix to incorporate all of the ingredients.
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   Now is the time to heat the canola oil in a medium sized pot, on medium heat.
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   We can turn up the heat after forming the pizza egg rolls.
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   When I make egg rolls, I typically use a spring roll style wrapper as I tend not to like the common egg roll wrappers that are sold in many grocery stores.
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    But in this case I used the ones that bubble up and are traditional in Chinese-American restaurants.
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    I was going for those Totinos-style frozen pizza rolls that have the bubbled-up appearance and texture after frying.
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    Lets make the egg rolls.
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    Lay out one wrapper, in a diamond formation in front of you on a work surface.
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    I like to place one on a plate with a point in front of me.
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    Add about 3 tablespoons of the sausage mixture in the center.
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    Fold the wrapper over the mixture, and gently pull or roll back towards you to tighten the egg roll.
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    Once pulled back, roll it forward a turn or two, then fold over the sides, tucking them underneath the roll.
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    Then brush a bit of the beaten egg onto about 1 inch of the top diamond area, then roll it closed and press to seal.
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    Your goal here is to have a tight seal as you do not want cheese to leak into the hot oil.
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    That will not be good, trust me.
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    See the related blog link for more step-by-step tips for rolling egg rolls.
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    Repeat with as many wrappers or egg rolls that you would like to make.
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    Mine yielded about 12 pizza egg rolls.
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    Now go check on your oil and temperature.
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    You want your oil to be around 375 F. Once your oil is heated, carefully add a few egg rolls into the preheated oil.
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    You do not want to over-crowd the pan.
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    These will fry up in a matter of minutes so keep an eye on them.
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    Once they are a deep golden brown, remove them from the oil with your slotted spoon or spider and place onto a wire rack, or paper lined plate to remove any excess oil.
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    Repeat until you have finished frying them all.
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    To serve, you can shower the egg rolls with finely grated Parmesan cheese and serve with a bowl of heated marinara.
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    The texture of the egg roll wrapper lent itself perfectly with these pizza egg rolls.
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    Ill be honest, I devoured two of them right away and had to back away from them as they were that great.
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    My wife who seemed a bit skeptical fell in love with them.
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    And so did my son and daughter.
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    The great thing about these pizza egg rolls is that I knew every ingredient that was going into them.
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    And they were actually better than Totinos pizza rolls.
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    Not only that but you can get as creative as you want with the stuffing.
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    These are hands-down the best.
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    I hope you enjoy them as much as we did!