Yeah, you know how I had the season's first asparagus? If you have some, you should just steam it and eat it with butter or olive oil, like I did with the stroganoff. You should not use it as part of a filling for baked egg rolls.

These sound like a good idea at first, and to be honest, they weren't actually that bad. They're just not the Best idea. This mix would have just been much better in straight up stirfry form, and the asparagus would have been much better being just plain asparagus.

Mixed genre egg rolls

nigari tofu
tasteless oil (sunflower)
garlic
red pepper
asparagus
green cabbage
mushrooms
green onion
soy sauce
rice wine vinegar
egg roll wrappers

Sear tofu; quickly cook vegetables; fill and bake rolls.

Tofu: since I had nigari tofu, it was totally firm and in need of no pressing whatsoever. Yay! Cut it into cubes and sear it on all sides in a medium-hot nonstick pan. I may have put a little oil in here to help it along, but no seasoning otherwise. When your tofu is golden brown and has formed a clearly delicious crust, tip it out of the pan and leave it to the side.

Vegetables: basically we're going to stir-fry the veg. I was a little skeptical that this was necessary, so I made one roll with raw veg to compare. It turned out fine and edible, but I think the lightly cooked filling was a little better. It was certainly easier to work with, since cooked vegetables are flexible. Either way should work, though.

Mince garlic and soften on medium-high heat with flavorless oil (or peanut/sesame oil, if you have those around). Chop up your other vegetables and add them to the pan with a splash of soy sauce and a dribble of rice wine vinegar. You could also use teriyaki sauce, or really any sauce you think would work. It's all good. For veg, I had asparagus, red pepper, cabbage, mushrooms, and green onion, but a more traditional cabbage-carrot-etc mix would also clearly be good.

Cook for a few minutes, stirring often, on medium-high heat. You just want the vegetables to wilt a little. This should take less than five minutes. When done, whip the pan off the heat and tip the vegetables into a cool bowl so they won't keep cooking.

Rolls: I totally used a package of Nasoya wrappers. They were pretty easy to work with, and turned out fine. I think next time I would go to an actual Asian market and find a better kind, though. Or, you know, make them myself. Whichever.

For each roll, turn a wrapper so a corner points to you. Arrange a line of tofu and vegetables horizontally across the wrapper, about 2/3 of the way down toward the point. Lift the bottom corner over the filling, then fold in each side and continue to roll. Put your finished roll seam side down on a baking sheet. Keep going until either your filling or your wrappers are used up. I got about eight or nine rolls out of my batch. I also took zero pictures of this process, which is clearly helpful.

Apparently you're supposed to brush baked rolls with some oil before they go into the oven. I forgot, and so ended up eating rolls with dry, powdery skins. The oil would obviously make the finished product better; brush your rolls with oil before baking.

Bake at 350F until crispy and turning golden brown. I turned mine over about ten minutes into the bake. Clearly, you could also deep fry these. Whatever floats your boat.

Eat!

These want sauce. I wanted to have them with Chinese hot mustard so badly. We didn't have any, though, so I had to go for some more soy sauce mixed with sriracha. One of the Thai honey-vinegar sauces, or a peanut sauce, would clearly be good. Maybe it's mixing genres there too, but whatever. As long as it tastes good, I'm happy.