Imperial Spring Rolls
Appetizers Asian Pork Meat Dishes
These are addictive! You can't stop at just one! The Vietnamese dipping sauce and lettuce leaves add freshness, making them feel so light you forget they're fried. Next project: fresh Vietnamese spring rolls!
Tip: You can find rice paper sheets, various types of Chinese mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and other Asian sauces at Selgros.
Ingredients
20-25 rice paper sheets (16 cm diameter)
oil for frying
Filling
200g ground pork
100g peeled shrimp
50g crab meat (or 3 surimi sticks)
50g rice noodles
1 small egg
1 large carrot
1/4 onion
1 small garlic clove
5 dried black mushrooms
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
a little salt
Yield: 20-25
How to prepare imperial spring rolls
- Cover the mushrooms with hot water to rehydrate them; also cover the rice noodles with hot water; let sit for 10 minutes.
- Finely chop the shrimp and crab meat/surimi with a knife. Mix with the ground pork, grated carrot (using the large holes), very finely chopped onion, and crushed garlic. Add the rehydrated mushrooms, finely chopped, and the chopped noodles. Mix everything well until combined.
- Season the filling with a little salt, pepper, lemon juice, fish sauce, and the beaten egg. Mix until the mixture becomes sticky.
- Prepare the rolls: Fill a deep plate (soup bowl) with room temperature water. Take one rice paper sheet at a time (16 cm is ideal because the rolls will be small and easy to fry). Quickly dip it in water, remove, quickly dip again, and remove. Place on your work surface and let sit between 30 seconds and 1 minute to soften and become pliable. Be careful - if you soak the sheets too long in water, they become very sticky. Even so, the sheet will stick a bit to your work surface, but being elastic, they'll come off easily. Prepare only 3-4 sheets at a time.
- Place 1 heaping teaspoon of filling on each sheet. Roll the sheet over the filling. Fold up the sides to seal the filling. Roll all the way to the end. (See photos 4-7).
- Place the prepared rolls on a plate, making sure they don't touch each other, as they can stick together.
- When you've prepared all the rolls, heat plenty of oil until very hot. Put one roll in - if it sizzles, it's ready, then add the rest. Be careful not to crowd the rolls in the pan, as they will stick together if they touch! Reduce heat to medium and let the rolls fry until lightly golden. The rolls are fried over medium heat, like our meatballs, so the filling has time to cook while the rice paper doesn't break. At high temperatures, the wrapper puffs up and bursts, and the filling will leak out or they'll simply look ugly. So keep the temperature moderate while frying!
- Remove them onto paper towels to drain.
- Serve warm or cold with lettuce leaves and Vietnamese dipping sauce.
Filling
Rice paper sheets
Moistened rice paper
1 teaspoon of filling on each sheet
Roll over the filling
Fold up the sides
Roll to the end
Rolls
Frying
