I know, I know. It starts out sounding healthy, you know, because there’s a green vegetable, but then I go and ruin it by adding fat and salty meat, and then deep-frying the whole thing.
I’m a terrible influence, I know.
But, if you’re interested in a really quick, easy, and yummy little appetizer (or after-school snack, as these were), then stick around.
All you need are some wonton wrappers, fresh asparagus, sliced ham, sliced cheese, and some hot oil.
I trimmed the asparagus so they were shorter than the diagonal length of the wonton wrappers.
Why? Because I wanted to be able to fold the pointy ends closed before frying.
So.
I used half a slice of muenster cheese and half a slice of deli ham per asparagus.
I sandwiched the asparagus in the cheese, then rolled that up length-wise in the half ham slice.
I painted the edges of each egg roll wrapper with some water (food glue), placed the rolled-up asparagus at one corner, and rolled the whole thing up.
And then folded the ends down and sealed them.
See? Easy, peasy, allergy-sneezy. (I don’t know where that came from.)
Once all the little asparagus/ham/cheese thingies were rolled up and sealed, I fried them in hot oil. I heat my oil to about 360 F, and then I drained the finished morsels on several thicknesses of paper towels. I cooked them in batches of four until they were dark golden brown.
Some of them were oozing.
Be careful – they’re really hot inside! It’s kind of a good idea to slice them in half so they can cool a bit faster.
I’d made mine so they’d be ready by the time Bill and the kids all arrived home after work/school. Bill got home first and burnt his mouth but said they were really good. Salty and crunchy and asparagusy.
I wondered if they’d be even better with some sort of dipping sauce…
The kids arrived home, and Alex was the next guinea pig to try one. He chewed thoughtfully and then, rather than shower me with praise, he said “You know what these need? Some kind of dipping sauce….”
I love that boy.
A hot/sweet Thai plum sauce was pulled from the fridge, and this worked really well – the sweet heat balanced out the saltiness but didn’t overpower the asparagus. And everything goes nicely with crispy and crunchy.
Julia liked them too – she preferred to pull the asparagus out first, eat that, and then eat the rest. She eats to the beat of her own drum, that one.
Anyway – successful experiment all around!
These look great. I was thinking honey mustard sauce to dip them.
Posted by: Wandering Chopsticks | April 24, 2012 at 02:40 PM
Looks yummo! Hope you are feeling better!
Posted by: Alex | April 25, 2012 at 09:16 AM
Those look sooo good!!
I agree with Wandering Chopsticks-honey mustard would be a great dipping sauce
Hope you have a nice day!
Beth
Posted by: Beth | April 25, 2012 at 02:49 PM
These look excellent. I was considering baby mustard marinade to dip them.
Posted by: RetroFoam Toledo | April 30, 2012 at 07:08 AM