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| There should be no gap between the meat and the wrapper ! Roll and wrap it tight. These are made by our girls so they are loose :-) |
I'm almost 38 weeks pregnant so right now, cooking isn't something I enjoy very much at the moment :-) I just want to eat and sleep ! We are planning on a quiet night in on New Year's eve. We already have the virgin bubbly and dessert for the count down celebration but dinner ? oh I don't know what to eat for dinner. All the Christmas meals are still fresh in our head and we long for comfort food. C suggested I make springrolls because he likes the way I make it. Springrolls wrapped in crisp lettuce sounds wonderful so I said to him that I'll do the mixing IF he does the rolling and cooking.
A little over an hour prepping, rolling and cooking, we were rewarded with tasty crunchy spring rolls with tender hot meat filling inside ! oh how I miss eating them. It was so worth the effort. Hubby and kids happily gobbled them up !
Here's the recipe ! It's my own recipe as this is how I remember the taste of springrolls in my childhood years. I got the base ingredients from my aunt Ninh, who's the best cook in my mom's side of family. Hubby and the kids likes it and even my picky mom said it's good. I wanted to write this recipe for my girls as I hope they can make it and pass on to their kids.
Feel free to play with the recipe, experiment with ground chicken or turkey, add in a little shredded jicama or taro.
As taste are subjective, TASTE TEST the meat before committing to roll all the rolls ! Take a bit of the meat mixture, either microwave or pan fried them, then taste to make sure it's to your liking. Adjust by adding more fish sauce, salt or sugar. Good luck :-)
INGREDIENTS:
*makes about 50 of 4" X 1" rolls
- 2 lbs of lean ground pork
- 1 pounds of tiger prawn, chopped finely into small pieces (little more or less is ok)
- 1 pounds of tiger prawn, chopped finely into small pieces (little more or less is ok)
- 2 cup of shredded carrots (loosely measured, don't pack it)
- 2 bundles of dry bean thread noodles (also know as angel hair or glass noodles), soak in boiling hot water for 3 min. to soften, makes about 2 cups, use scissor to roughly cut it into short length, about 1 1/2 inch
- 1/2 of a medium white onion, finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon of black pepper
- 3 tablespoon of good fish sauce (Red Boat or 3 Crabs brand)
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 1 teaspoon of Lee Kum Kee chicken bouillon powder (if don't have it, add 1/2 tsp of salt)
- 1 teaspoon of Lee Kum Kee chicken bouillon powder (if don't have it, add 1/2 tsp of salt)
- 1 1/2 teaspoon of organic cane sugar (white sugar is OK)
- 1 egg
- spring roll pastry wrapper (pack of 50, brand I used is called Spring Home, bought frozen, takes about 2-3 hours to thaw in room temperature)
The ingredients below can be omitted if you don't have them or don't like them ! I think they are for texture more than taste anyways.
- 1 cup of wilted bean sprouts (soak fresh bean sprout in boiling hot water for 5 min. Then pour into a strainer, rinse with cold water to cool then use hands to squeeze all the water out of the bean sprout. They need to be as dry as possible.)
Cornstarch sealant (glue for the spring rolls)
- 3 tablespoon of lukewarm water
- 1 table spoon of corn starch
INSTRUCTIONS:
In a bowl, mix well the carrots, angel hair, bean sprouts, and wood ear mushroom together. Then add in the prawn, pork, pepper, fish sauce, salt and sugar. Break in an egg to bind the ingredients together. Mix well with your hands. I have yet to find a way to do this without using my hands. Fork and chopsticks just doesn't mix it as good as I like.
Once mixed, set up a rolling station ! in a bowl, mix the lukewarm water with the corn starch, this is your sealant for the spring rolls.
Open the pastry pack, peel out 1 sheet of spring roll pastry and lay flat on plate (the pastry should look like a diamond in front of you). Take a spoonful of the meat mixing and put it near the mid mark of the pastry, even the meat out to about 2 1/2 in length. Fold up the bottom the pastry, it should look like a triangle. Roll it once tightly, don't put too much pressure, just enough to make sure there's no air pocket, then fold in the two sides to close it like an envelop. Roll it up to where the 2 sides end, you should now be left with a section of pastry, looks like a triangle. Now dip your finger into the bowl of cornstarch "glue" wipe across the top two section of the triangle (like how you would seal an envelop). Roll to the end tip and the cornstarch should seal the spring roll. Repeat with the rest of the meat filling !
In a deep fryer (or a deep pot), fill with enough vegetable oil to fry the spring rolls. If using pot, fill it with at least 3 inches of oil. When oil is bubbly hot, with a thong or a pair of wooden chopsticks, slowly lower one spring roll at a time into the oil. Don't over crowd the pot, the spring rolls won't cook evenly. Lower the heat to Medium. Keep turning them over until they turn nicely golden brown. Usually it takes about 5 - 10 min. depending on the size of your springroll.
When the spring rolls are done, you can put them on a rack to drain the excess oil or put some paper towel in a deep bowl and stand the spring rolls in there. Give them a few minutes to cool down and you can cut them up and put over cooked vermicelli noodles, pour some Vietnamese dipping sauce over them and a side of sliced lettuce, cucumber, cilantro and basil. Another way to eat these are to wrap each roll in a leaf of lettuce and dip in the Vietnamese dipping sauce.
Recipe for the dipping sauce is here: http://www.tracycollin.ca/2013/09/how-to-make-vietnamese-nuoc-mam-dipping.html
- 1 egg
- spring roll pastry wrapper (pack of 50, brand I used is called Spring Home, bought frozen, takes about 2-3 hours to thaw in room temperature)
The ingredients below can be omitted if you don't have them or don't like them ! I think they are for texture more than taste anyways.
- 1 cup of wilted bean sprouts (soak fresh bean sprout in boiling hot water for 5 min. Then pour into a strainer, rinse with cold water to cool then use hands to squeeze all the water out of the bean sprout. They need to be as dry as possible.)
- 1/3 cup of thinly chopped wood ear mushroom (other names are cloud ear fungus or black fungus)
Cornstarch sealant (glue for the spring rolls)
- 3 tablespoon of lukewarm water
- 1 table spoon of corn starch
INSTRUCTIONS:
In a bowl, mix well the carrots, angel hair, bean sprouts, and wood ear mushroom together. Then add in the prawn, pork, pepper, fish sauce, salt and sugar. Break in an egg to bind the ingredients together. Mix well with your hands. I have yet to find a way to do this without using my hands. Fork and chopsticks just doesn't mix it as good as I like.
Once mixed, set up a rolling station ! in a bowl, mix the lukewarm water with the corn starch, this is your sealant for the spring rolls.
Open the pastry pack, peel out 1 sheet of spring roll pastry and lay flat on plate (the pastry should look like a diamond in front of you). Take a spoonful of the meat mixing and put it near the mid mark of the pastry, even the meat out to about 2 1/2 in length. Fold up the bottom the pastry, it should look like a triangle. Roll it once tightly, don't put too much pressure, just enough to make sure there's no air pocket, then fold in the two sides to close it like an envelop. Roll it up to where the 2 sides end, you should now be left with a section of pastry, looks like a triangle. Now dip your finger into the bowl of cornstarch "glue" wipe across the top two section of the triangle (like how you would seal an envelop). Roll to the end tip and the cornstarch should seal the spring roll. Repeat with the rest of the meat filling !
In a deep fryer (or a deep pot), fill with enough vegetable oil to fry the spring rolls. If using pot, fill it with at least 3 inches of oil. When oil is bubbly hot, with a thong or a pair of wooden chopsticks, slowly lower one spring roll at a time into the oil. Don't over crowd the pot, the spring rolls won't cook evenly. Lower the heat to Medium. Keep turning them over until they turn nicely golden brown. Usually it takes about 5 - 10 min. depending on the size of your springroll.
When the spring rolls are done, you can put them on a rack to drain the excess oil or put some paper towel in a deep bowl and stand the spring rolls in there. Give them a few minutes to cool down and you can cut them up and put over cooked vermicelli noodles, pour some Vietnamese dipping sauce over them and a side of sliced lettuce, cucumber, cilantro and basil. Another way to eat these are to wrap each roll in a leaf of lettuce and dip in the Vietnamese dipping sauce.
Recipe for the dipping sauce is here: http://www.tracycollin.ca/2013/09/how-to-make-vietnamese-nuoc-mam-dipping.html
TIPS:
- to test for when the oil is hot enough to fry, take a wooden spoon or wooden chopstick and stick it into the pot. If bubbles formed around the stick then it's ready !
- you can freeze the rolled spring rolls for deep frying later on. Just make sure you freeze them in single layer. You can stack them in layers if you separate each layer with plastic cling wrap. If you are using other brand of pastry wrapper, make sure the rolls doesn't touch each other. This is to ensure the pastry wrap doesn't get stuck to each other and rip when you deep fry them. When ready for frying, remove spring rolls from freezer and you can deep fry them in their frozen state, no need to thaw. Add a few min. to cooking time.
- I've also have tried deep fried all the rolls first then freeze them once they cooled down. The one I want to freeze, I fry them to a light brown, not golden. Since they are already cooked, you can freeze as it, stacked up, no need for single layer or keeping them separated from each other. When you want to eat them, reheat at 350 degrees for about 12-15 min and they're good to go ! Depending in toaster/oven brand/model and the quantity of rolls in it, it might take a few min. less or another 5-7 min. to completely heat up the spring rolls. Please taste test your spring rolls for hotness.
