INGREDIENTS:
| - |
- |
Spring roll wrappers |
- |
| - |
- |
Chinese sausage |
leanest you can find - fried at links and drained of oil - cut into
long strips, pat dry. |
| 1 |
- |
cucumber |
remove the seeds - slice in long strips |
| 1/4 |
thick |
tofu |
firm or extra firm - fry on both sides pressing out the water, till
golden, then cut into strips |
| 1 |
- |
egg |
beaten and fried - make it flat, as in one or wo big pieces, not scrambled
at all, cut into strips |
| - |
- |
bean sprouts |
fresh and trimmed neatly of roots. |
| - |
- |
plum sauce |
- |
| - |
- |
OPTIONAL |
- |
| - |
- |
freshly cooked crab meat, to sprinkle on top when serving, and maybe
thinly sliced chilis. |
|
|
DIRECTIONS:
-
Defrost the spring roll wrappers in the refrigerator overnight, unwrapped
in the original package. If you try to defrost them faster, they
will tend to dry out and become brittle, or else become soggy. At
all times while eating, keep the spring roll wrappers covered to keep them
from drying out, most easily in the package, tucking the only open end
underneath. It's best to just slit that one end and put the stack
back in the package after "peeling" off the layers you're ready to eat.
-
Amount wise for the ingredients. It doesn't matter, but you'll need
practice to make it come out even. A package of wrappers is 500g,
more than a complete meal for 4, even if you make each roll small.
So, make a little more so you don't run out. Leftovers, you can always
eat it without some of the items. Vegetarian version, ust don't use
the sausage. The plum sauce, tofu, egg and crispy vegetables is enough.
-
Make each roll as you eat, by laying it out on plate, then putting at least
one strip of everything to taste and a few bean sprouts on the roll (don't
make it too fat or it will fall apart when you try to eat it), some plum
sauce on and roll it up tightly, tucking the ends in. If you're making
them to serve, you can roll without sauce, lay them on a plate, then
put the sauce on, and sprinkle on the optional things. We eat them
as a family meal so we all make our own as we want. The sauce can
drip down to the bottom and sometimes make the bottom of your roll soggy
as you eat from the top end, so make sure you don't put too much sauce
in.
-
The fried version uses the same rolls but entirely different ingredients,
and can be quite greasy as it is deep-fried and the insides are fried first
to done. It involves ground pork, carrot, napa, (optional ground
raw shrimp/crab meat), wood ear mushrooms and bean thread noodles (salt,
pepper, light soy sauce)l I forgot what else exactly...but basically
you put all this together, fry it till it's quite dry, then let it cool
a little so it doesn't steam the wrappers to mush, and then deep-fry.
Eat right away with sweet chili sauce. Or with plum sauce.
-
My opinion is generally fresh spring rolls are served with a sweet/sour
sauce like plum, not with peanut sauce. The dip has ground roasted
peanuts on top sometimes, but it is not a peanut dip. The dip is
usually thick, while the Vietnamese versions I've had use a thin, watery
sauce, also sweet/sour.
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