How a Pro Chef Makes NYC Deli-Inspired Egg Rolls | The Special | Bon Appétit

You’ve heard of the Chili’s Southwestern Egg Rolls, but what happens when you get a top chef to create their own version of it? Bon Appétit joins Chef Jackie Carnesi, head chef at the legendary Kellogg’s Diner in Brooklyn, as she transforms it into a New York-inspired Reuben Egg Roll, complete with homemade corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and crispy rye flour wrappers.

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[upbeat music] – I have a quite a few
memories of eating at Chili’s. I distinctly remember getting
the Southwest eggrolls because my family was
not an appetizer family. Like you got water when we went out to eat and you got your entree and that was it. I do remember one time we
got the Southwest eggrolls and it was like, you know, such an occasion and they were so good. I really love these and that’s why I wanted
to make my own version of the Southwestern eggroll as the special of the week here. The Southwest eggroll is a
really magical concoction of lakey dough stuffed
with black beans, corn, bell peppers, melty cheese, and everything you would want in eggroll that was born in New Mexico. [upbeat music] That’s pretty good. So we’re at Kellogg’s
Diner in Williamsburg. It’s a 97-year-old diner. Though we’re gonna take
the Southwestern eggroll and make it a Northeastern eggroll. It felt appropriate to do a Reuben, that’s such a classic
New York diner sandwich. There are a few key points you wanna hit when making an eggroll. The first being a nice flaky exterior. It’s really important for an eggroll that you have this like
kind of nice balance between crispy crunchy and then like that nice
chewy pull from the dough that’s like slightly less
cooked on the inside. The second thing that you really want is a nice substantial
filling that is far too hot when you bite into it. You wanna make sure that there’s like a nice
balance between the filling and the exterior, so that your eggroll isn’t
too dry or too doughy. Once these set the table, you want them to hold
their structural integrity and keep their crisp. It’s really important that
the fillings are not too wet. A wet filling is gonna make your exterior soggy really quickly. All of the components
that make a great eggroll also make a great Ruben. We wanna take all the elements that make a Southwest
eggroll really great, infuse that with all of
the flavors of a Ruben and make it more true to New York. When I set out to make this filling, I wanted you to be able to
distinguish each component when you bit into it. In a Reuben, you have this
really nice braised corn beef, bright, crunchy sauerkraut,
melted Swiss cheese and Russian dressing. A New York deli would make
their corn beef from scratch, so that’s the way we’re gonna do it too. I’m making the brine right now. I have about seven quarts of water. Corn beef is a brined brisket. We’re gonna use equal parts
sugar and securing salt, sodium nitrite to help preserve the meat. The sodium nitrite is
going to help the corn beef keep that nice pink color. And then the kosher salt that we’re using is gonna help break down connective tissue and the protein, so you have a tender cut of meat. Peppercorns, bay leaf and mustard seed. I’m just gonna give this a quick mix. We have our trimmed brisket here. Brisket is like on the
chest portion of the cow. It’s like a really worked muscle, the more tough cut of beef, which is why it’s important
to cook it slowly. It just gives it time
for the connective tissue and the protein to like
break down and tenderize. So take some ice. I’m really trying to prevent
bacteria from forming since it is gonna be
a long brining process and ensuring that the meat stays cold is a really safe way to do that. Over the next five to seven days, the brine is gonna infuse into the meat, break down the connective tissue, give it a lot more flavor. All of the spices and the salt are going to be penetrated into the meat. But movie magic, I have one prepared. I started burning this one a week ago and we’re ready to pop it in the oven. We actually want to
use hot water this time as opposed to cold because the goal is to bring
the internal temperature of the brisket up so that it’s cooking evenly in the oven and pop it into a 275 degree oven for like three to four hours. Brisket is out of the
oven and cooled down. It feels pretty tender, I’m gonna cut into it and make
sure that that is the case. That looks good. The brine has penetrated all
the way through the brisket, which you can see the
colors all the way through. And you can see here all
this like connective tissue that runs throughout the
brisket has broken down, so this is gonna be a
nice tender piece of meat. For our purposes, we’re just gonna like
chop the [beep] out of it. Chopping up the beef
is gonna give you more of a homogenous texture. You’re gonna get a
little bit of everything through every bite, but really I can almost even
just break it up with my hands because it’s so tender. The salinity has really
penetrated the meat. It’s really flavorful. You can taste the mustard seed
and the peppercorn in there. There’s a little bit of
sweetness too from the sugar. It’s a really nice balance of flavors. You guys want some?
– Sure, great. Everyone should say yes. – Next up I’m gonna chop up
all of this Swiss cheese. This is gonna give a nice
fatty, creamy, unctuous flavor to our eggrolls. In the Chili’s eggroll, the cheese acted as a
little bit of a binder. I’m putting all my
ingredients into one bowl, the chopped beef, the cheese,
the kraut, and the mustard. We’re gonna mix those all together, so it’s a more of a homogenous bite. Sauerkraut is fermented cabbage. It’s just shredded cabbage and
salt that’s been fermented. It’s nice and bright, gives a nice acidity to different foods and it’s honestly one
of my favorite foods, I could like eat it right out of a jar. Something really important
when making these eggrolls is to make sure that
there’s not too much liquid incorporated into the filling. So something I’m gonna
do is to squeeze out all of this sauerkraut brine. So we’re looking for a balance of flavors. The meat’s gonna bring
the fattiness, the umami, the cheese is gonna bring that creaminess, the mustard seed and the kraut are gonna bring the acidity to help balance both of those things out. That’s delicious. I could literally eat
this by the spoonful, it’s so good. So it’s kind of like if a Ruben was meant for a baby. [laughs] It’s got a great balance
between flavors and textures. There’s a little texture from
the mustard seed and kraut. It’s bright and it’s acidic. It doesn’t feel too heavy, but I think it’s gonna work really nicely as an eggroll filling. I’m going to set this aside and then I’m going to go ahead and mix my dough and
get my wrappers ready. [upbeat music] Typically for an eggroll,
people use wonton wrappers. I don’t think this is
a classic wonton dough. It’s like a little bit denser. Something that resembles
more of like a chimichanga, you know, like a fried flour tortilla. The difference between a wonton dough and a flour tortilla is that there’s a lot more fat
incorporated into a flour tortilla, whether that’s like pork
fat, or butter, or oil. The goal is to get a crispy exterior that maintains once it hits the table and sits for a little while, as well as like that balance of chewiness when you bite into it. Traditionally a Reuben
is made with rye bread, usually toasted. It’s just got an earthier flavor, a definitely more distinct
flavor than all-purpose flour. So we’re basically making a rye flour wanton wrapper right now. What we’re going to do is do a split between all
purpose flour and rye flour. Rye flour is a less glutenous flour, at least compared to all purpose, and we really wanted to use it because it has that distinct
like woodsy nutty flavor. I also didn’t sift out any of the germ in the rye flour, so it’s got a little bit
more texture to it as well. You wanna make sure your dough has flavor, so we’re gonna add some salt in here and just a little bit of baking powder to add a little bit more
airiness to the dough. And when we fry it, it’ll create those little
bubbles that we’re looking for. We’re adding in our egg yolk. These are gonna act as
your binder for the dough. One and a half cups of ice cold water. We’re looking to create a shaggy dough, very similar to making pasta. Working and resting the dough
is really important because that will ensure that
my wrappers are sturdy and that they can hold up
to the wet ingredients. The Chili’s eggrolls have a
really substantial filling, a lot of wet ingredients and the wrapper is still
able to hold up to that. The doughs come together
and when you press it, it bounces back. I have a damp towel here that I’m just gonna cover my dough with and let it rest for about an hour. Okay, so we’re gonna
portion this dough out. The corn starch is gonna keep the layers of the dough from sticking to each other. So I’m trying to roll this out
in eighth of an inch thick. Pretty much as thin as possible. That ensures that the dough
is going to be like nice and crispy when it fries up and it’s not gonna be
too thick or toothsome. You want a strong dough
that’s not gonna burst open when you’re filling it and this one looks really solid. So for one eggroll, I’m really happy with this. It’s looking really good. I’m gonna set this aside and roll out the rest of my dough. [upbeat music] These are gonna stay
raw until they’re filled and wrapped and then deep fried. In the meantime, I wanna keep them covered from drying out. They’re gonna go into the refrigerator and I’m ready to make the dipping sauce. [upbeat music] This is the avocado ranch that comes with the Southwestern eggrolls. It’s got a really nice minty color light avocado, if you will. It doesn’t taste like ranch, it tastes like avocado
and some form of dairy, like sour cream or something. But when you eat it with
the Southwestern eggrolls, it definitely like adds a
little bit of coolness to, you know, the like the hot
eggroll, which is great. [tape whizzing] That’s pretty good. I wanted to create a Russian
dressing style dipping sauce, you know, would be an homage to a Ruben, but also bring some
brightness and acidity. The star of the show in Russian dressing, just like in ranch is mayonnaise and that’s gonna be the bulk
of our base of the sauce. Mayonnaise is gonna bring the
creamy fattiness to the party. Ketchup is gonna bring a
little bit more acidity and vegetal notes from the tomato. And to really kick up
the brightness even more, I’m gonna add some lemon juice. Traditionally Russian dressing
called for worcestershire, but we use Maggie a lot. It’s great in a michelada, but basically it’s just
like umami seasoning. So this is fresh horseradish. Horseradish is a root, is used in imitation wasabi, if that helps you understand
like what the spice level is. We’re just gonna give this a quick mix. That’s good. That’s right where I want it. It’s gonna help to balance
out the fattiness of the meat, and the fried dough, and the cheese, and bring a level of complexity
beyond the mustard seed and the kraut that’s inside the filling. All of the ingredients are ready. I think it’s time that we
get these bad boys filled, and fried, and eaten. [upbeat music] Unlike an eggroll that you
would get at a restaurant, the Chili’s eggrolls are
really filled and fat and we love that about them. And so I wanna recreate that, which means that I’m gonna use a really
solid handful of filling. I’m gonna try to compact it a little bit, so that it makes it easier to roll. So I’m just gonna go around
the edge of the eggroll with a little bit of water, fold this over one time and press and seal on the edges. This is where I’m really gonna
get the first solid shape and form of the eggroll. You really wanna make
sure that your eggroll is solid and compact, and there’s not a lot of air in there because what will happen
is when you’re frying it, you’re gonna end up with
like a loose floppy eggroll. Moving from like your table to the fryer, it’s just not gonna be
structurally a sound. So now I’m tucking in the edges and adding a little bit more water as I go to make sure that it stays sealed. As you can tell, it’s already like a monster of an eggroll, which is good. [chuckles] Here’s my baby. I think it looks good and it feels secure and structurally sound. The fact that this is
filled with mostly meat and not beans is gonna make it a little bit hardier. So I don’t know how many you’d realistically be able to put down, but you know, that’s
like an open challenge. [upbeat music] I’m gonna go ahead and
finish rolling out the rest and then we can fry them all in one go. [upbeat music] They’re massive, they’re absolute honkers, but that’s okay. I mean, you know, who
could be mad at that? More filling is more pleasure. So I’m just gonna drop them
into a 350 degree fryer for about three to four minutes or until they’re like nice
and golden, brown and crispy and like kind of bubbly on the outside. You don’t want to fry too hot or too cold. Frying too hot is gonna mean that your outside crisps really
quickly gets really dark before maybe your filling is hot. And frying too low might mean that your eggroll is gonna be
taking on too much grease or like won’t get crispy fast enough. It might give you a tougher dough. Look how pretty they’re, [chuckles] I’m so happy with the bubbles. Really crispy, golden
brown, nice bubbling, which is like classic
wonton reaction to frying. I’m gonna cut these on a very hard bias to replicate the ones at Chili’s. We wanna be able to see all of the filling and all of the guts, the
kraut, and the mustard seed, and the corn beef and the cheese, I think that’ll offer for a
really nice distinctive bite. I’m gonna fan these out on the plate in a nice little pinwheel. I’m gonna throw the Russian
dipping sauce in here, heavy on the horseradish. There’s my dinner, they’re beautiful. I’m gonna take these out
to the diner and try them. And let’s see if all
my hard work paid off. I’m gonna go with this one. I think this is the winner. [upbeat music] That’s pretty good. That’s pretty very good. Right off the bat, there’s just like a lot more brightness compared to the Southwestern eggrolls, which I really like about it. The meat is really tender and juicy. The flavor of the cheese
still comes through. The crisp on the dough has held up. If somebody just shoved a
bite of this into your mouth, you would think you were eating a Ruben. I really think that we hit
the mark with the ratio of filling to dough. I’m really happy with how
crispy the exterior is. You can see like it’s nice and crispy. They’ve been sitting here for a second. They haven’t like
steamed and gotten soggy. Good structural integrity and I’m really happy with them. I think I did a pretty good
job of encompassing the spirit of the Southwest eggroll. I obviously went a little bit bigger, but you know, New York’s
a big city, right? We’ve got big appetites out here. I’m so stoked on these. I decided to put them on
the menu as a special. You can come to Kellogg’s Diner, 518 Metropolitan in
Williamsburg, Brooklyn. You can have these, they can be yours. We’re serving them up for two days only. These are the dates right here. Come get them while they’re
hot, and molten and filled. I think we can mark this as a win. I did what I set out to do, which was make a nice crispy, full delicious eggroll based on a Ruben and an homage to Chili’s
Southwest eggrolls. So come to Kellogg’s and
have some for yourself. [logo chimes]