Spring Rolls (Chả giò)

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Cuisine : Vietnamese

Course : Side Dish Snack

Dietary :

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Today we had a friend from the West who really likes spring rolls, so we decided to show him how to make spring rolls. This is also our first entry so I would like to introduce a little bit about us: We are from two different sides of the world. We create this page to share our love for cooking with each other and with our loved ones. But the main focus of this page is food, not us! So, enjoy reading and hope you find it useful! Spring roll is a very popular Vietnamese dish which comes in a number of varieties. Today we made a traditional one with simple ingredients and recipe.

Ingredients

Ingredient Quantity
Popiah Wrapper 50 pc.
Cooking Oil 250 ml.
Egg 3 pc.
Shredded Jícama 0.5 pc.
Shredded Taro 0.5 pc.
Dried Black Jelly Fungus 100 g.
Diced Shrimp 200 g.
Minced Pork 500 g.

Instructions

Notes: If you cannot find jícama, dried black jelly fungus and taro, it's okay to use other ingredients to replace. I would suggest to use shredded carrots, diced onions and cassava. Taro or cassava will give sweet and buttery taste while jícama or onion gives fresh and crispy flavor. For the meat, you can also use crab or chicken.   

 

 

 

Directions: 

  • Put dried black jelly fungus in water for 60 minutes and then slice them. 
  • Put pork, shrimp, black jelly fungus, taro and jícama to a big bowl. Put 3 chicken egg yolks (keep the egg whites in a small bowl) and 2 spoons of oil into the mixture. 

  • Season the filling with fish sauce (or salt) and sugar. I normally just season by feelings so I cannot give any measurement :) 
  • If you want to make sure it is seasoned well, just make one roll and fry it, then taste.
  • Now is the fun part: folding the rolls. There are many different wrappers that can be used for spring rolls, such as rice papers, flour egg roll wrappers, popiah wrappers (also called spring roll wrappers) or net spring roll wrappers. I personally prefer popiah wrappers because it's easy to fold and also makes the spring roll crispier. 

  • Place a wrapper on a chopping board (or a flat dish). 
  • Place the filling on the wrapper, near the bottom of the sheet and spread it out in a line (not too thin or thick).  

  • Fold 2 sides of the wrapper over the mixture. 
  • Fold the bottom of the wrap up over the filling and then continue to fold the roll. 
  • Spread some egg whites onto the last corner of the roll and stick it to the rest of the roll. 

You can find many videos and wiki shows how to do this by searching for "how to fold a spring roll". 

  • After you finish folding all rolls, put them into the fridge for 15-20 minutes for better taste. 
  • Heat up cooking oil in a wok. Since we don't have wok, we use a pot instead. If you use a big pan, you would have to use a lot of oil.   
  • Lastly, deep fry spring rolls in low heat. Remember to keep turning them over to have both sides turn gold evenly. When it turns golden brown, it's done.

  • You should place the fried rolls on a rack or oil-absorbing cook paper for them to drain. 

 

We served spring rolls with vermicelli, fish sauce, sliced cucumber, sprout and lettuce. However, we ended up eating with chilly sauce and tomato sauce at the end because we made too many spring rolls.