Spring Rolls with a Twist

 

Many of you will know the Sunday that just passed, marked the celebration of the moon festival.  The Moon Festival is celebrated by most Chinese and is a wonderful way to celebrate time with family and friends.   I thought I would get in on the action and make my own Chinese inspired meal.

 

 

 

 

One of the stand outs of the meal was the entrée – a humble vegetable spring roll. I am not usually a fan of vegetarian food truth be told, however this dish is overflowing with textures and flavours so you don’t even realise the omission of meats. Off course you could add a meat like roasted duck or chicken and make this into a main. The beautiful part of this spring roll is the use of dried bean curd (which can be bought from any Asian supermarket) which encases the filling. It gives it a wonderful crunch and allows it to be much lighter dish than using the usual pastry.

Ingredients:

• 1 packet dried bean curd, cut into 18cm squares

And for the filling: 

• 50g bean thread noodles 
• 2 eggs 
• ½ carrot, julienne strips 
• ½ cucumber, julienne strips 
• 1 spring onion, finely sliced 
• ½ bunch mint and coriander sliced finely 
• Handful of dried black cloud ear fungus (which is a type of mushroom that can be bought at the Asian supermarket)  
• Handful of fresh bean sprouts 
• Vegetable oil for frying

Method:

Cut the dried bean curd into squares and set aside. Ensure you cover with a damp tea towel to prevent it drying out.

Rehydrate the dried black cloud ear fungus in warm water. Then squeeze of any excess water and cut finely.

Lightly beat the eggs in a bowl. Then add the eggs to a wok and cook for about one minute. It should look like a golden crepe. When the egg has cooked, turn it out onto a plate and cut into strips.

It is then a matter of assembling the filling into the bean curd squares. Be gentle when doing this so as to not break the bean curd casing. Put the mixture in the middle and form a log like shape. Then roll the spring rolls individually.

You need to deep fry the spring rolls for a couple of minutes in vegetable oil, which allows the bean curd to fluff up and become extremely crunchy.

 

We served this with a homemade sweet chilli sauce, which I assure you is worth the little extra effort.

 

 

Ingredients:

• 250ml white vinegar
• 165g white sugar
• 2 ½ tablespoons fish sauce
• 1 birds eye chilli (depending on how hot you like it)

Method:

Place vinegar and sugar in a small bowl saucepan and bring to the boil, ensuring it dissolves the sugar.

Reduced the heat and simmer (uncovered) until liquid reduces by half.This should take approximately 10 minutes.It should become slightly syrupy but ensure the consistency does not become so thick it turns into toffee!Once slightly cooled, add the fish sauce and chilli.