Vietnamese Spring Rolls

This is a recipe that I have been doing since we lived in another city and used to eat these delicious Vietnamese Spring rolls in a restaurant. The wrappers were filled with fresh vegetables, pork and shrimp and then deep fried!

My whole family loved these spring rolls which we all dissected to see what was in the wrappers. The stuffing was not minced so easily identified and easily made at home.

I have been making these for my daughter in university as a quick supper. They are her favourite and I still continue to have a supply in my freezer.


There is no real recipe other than using a package of ground meat, chicken or pork, thinly sliced Chinese cabbage or regular cabbage, grated 2 -3 carrots, diced small onion, grated ginger, handful of chopped cilantro.  Mix well. The filling is a very mixture and you can add more to create a very colourful filling. 

Sauté the meat and finely chopped onion.. Thinly sliced pea pods, green onions are nice.. However, bean sprouts are a pain as they poke through your wrapper!!
Chopped shrimp can also be added to the filling. I don't put garlic into the filling as I can't stand the smell in the deep freeze as they are first frozen on a cookie sheet before packing them in a covered container.

The spring roll wrappers that I find are the easiest to use and do not tear are made in Singapore by Spring Home, TYJ Spring Roll Pastry. These can be found in the Asian section of your super market. 

About 2 tablespoons of the filling were added to the centre of the wrapping.

The wrapper was folded up and then each side was folded inward to make an envelope.   A trick I learned was to dab a bit of a flour and water mixture at the top end to help the wrapper stick together. 

The package of 50 wrappers, even though I made a big bowl of filling, 5 wrappers were left over. Not a problem, wrap half a banana and enjoy it with maple syrup or ice cream!

!

Since I had Tourtiere filling leftover. I used this along with caramelized onion, hot mango sauce,  slivers of pineapple , cabbage and cilantro.

This filling was very tasty and as always tasters are a favourite of my hubby and I! 

The spring rolls can be deep fried but I have been baking them in my toaster oven for years.  Lightly spray the uncooked spring rolls with cooking oil and bake until golden and crispy, about 20 minutes! Serve with a sweet and sour sauce, my husband loves Hoisin sauce. 

Spring Rolls , Samosas with Three different fillings

Spring Rolls, shootings, Samosas and dryer repair man Murphy

Happy New Year! As the New Year beginnings it does so in the hold of a cold weather, minus 28 and tons of snow on the ground. After a drive to Lina’s Italian Supermarket for appetizers for New Year, experiencing a scary ride home with a dirty car wind shield as the summer windshield washer fluid was frozen solid, my car has sat in the yard, frozen and unable to be started.. Driving has been difficult all holiday season due to the conditions. Since supplies in the groceries stores this holiday season seems to be lacking, my daughter and I had not been able to make springs rolls on New Year Eve as we had the previous New Year’s Eve. Consequently my daughter and her friend drove around on New Year’s Day looking for spring rolls. The next day in the paper, I woke up to seeing the first New Year homicides of 2009 resulting from a shooting at a Vietnamese restaurant on Macleod, a restaurant that we have frequented. Springs rolls became the order of the day! I decided to make the spring rolls out of ground chicken in my freezer that I had instead of ground pork. I made them the same as I usually did but since the taste in using chicken was not as favourable as the ground pork, I ended up making two batches and then a third as the tasting that went on as my daughter taste tested springs to get the perfect taste quickly reduced the pile of spring rolls quickly. The first batch was with Chinese instant vermicelli noodles and then I left out the noodles as the blandness of the noodles and the chicken needed more seasoning. I also did add chopped onions to this second batch. I use Doll spring roll wrappers and I seemed to be having problems with the wraps cracking and falling apart. I had noticed previously that if the package was frozen for a while in my deep freeze the wrapper were not easy to work with and lacked moisture in the wrapper itself. This time I had three packages all different ages and still all three were not easy to roll out into spring rolls. Even though the packages are sealed, the wrappers seem to dry out. I actually had to soak the wrappers under running tap water to make them flexible. The recipe I followed was similar to the restaurant in Regina that we frequented, but we did not deep fry them. My daughter, fried the first taste test in a caste iron fry pan with oil, but baking them in a toaster oven with and without spraying them with oil was just as delicious. Yes, we taste tasted as we went along. The next day at our delayed annual New Year’s Day meat fondue, the reviews were also great as well as my son’s fiancé who acknowledges the spring rolls in her own words as being “ actually good!..

Spring Rolls Mixture

Fried ground pork.
Finely Chopped cabbage
Grated carrots
Chopped Spring onions (omitted this in first batch)
Grated fresh ginger
Grated fresh garlic
Instant Vermicelli noodles (soak in hot water first, drain when soft and add to mixture)
1 -2 tablespoon of soya sauce
1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
And in this case a dash of sesame seed oil
Freshly ground pepper and hot chilli flakes

The day of our delayed annual New Year’s Meat fondue, the dryer‘s thermostat went and, Murphy the repair man eyed the rolls as I was packaging up them up for my daughter to take back with her, I causally asked him if his wife used the same wrappers for Samosas. Much to my surprise in his time in my house as he repaired the dryer, I received recipes and also a philosophical approach to life based on the Muslim perspective. . Before anyone can understand another person’s culture, i.e. master ethnic recipes, one need to first understand one own culture and especially one self.. Not a bad philosophy to start the New Year. This he repeated a few times as he had me write his recipes for Samosas. Before leaving this philosophy revolved to what was happening in the Palestine and that the Muslins will not tolerate having their religion diluted or disregarded!!

..Here are his recipes that he dictated and watched as I wrote them down

He had suggested I use the Samosas wrappers art superstore but I mentioned that they were pricey; he said the same wrappers I used for the springs could be used here too, as did another friend

Three different fillings for Samosas
Ground Sirloin steak, chopped spring onions, minced garlic, minced ginger, salt, hot chilli flakes, a little bit of curry pulv and coriander

The second filling used diced potatoes that were boiled and cooled, peas, diced carrots and the same spices as in the meat filling.

The third filling was using mixed lentils, cooked first and again the same spices.


Using the mixtures he also emphasized that they were the bases of other recipes... The meat mixture could be used to make what he considered the true kebabs, by adding bread crumbs to the meat mixture, one could shape the mixtures into circular or sphere shaped kebabs on a skewers, then BBQ them and serve in Pita bread with lettuce, tomatoes and onions for a delicious sandwich. He also dipped these kebobs into egg wash and bread crumbs to fry as meat balls.


He also used the fillings as stuffing for mashed potatoes. He would make patties from the potatoes and use the filling to be sandwiching between the patties, then fry the potatoes until golden..

He also said the same fillings could be used as a sauce for pasta. By adding some tomatoes paste, chopped fresh tomatoes and liquid to the fillings, this sauce could be used on cooked pasta.

Here is a You Tube site that demonstrates making Samosas from scratch
INGREDIENTS: This recipe will make 8 Samosas. FOR CRUST1/2 cup all purpose flour 1/2 tablespoon sooji1/4 teaspoon salt1 tablespoons+ 1 teaspoon oil1/4 cup -1tablespoon look warm waterFOR FILLING3 red large potatoes 1/2 cup green peas2 chopped green chilly seeded1 teaspoon grated ginger½ teaspoon cumin seed1 teaspoon coriander powder½ teaspoon garam masala (garam masala is a mixture of different spices) 1 teaspoon mango powder2 tablespoons oil

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUA4g874WUs