Chinese Recipes | Cooking Tips | Good Eats

It’s interesting that both webster.com and dictionary.com define “spring roll” as an “egg roll”. Being curious, I went to take a look at my packet of spring roll pastry sheets in the freezer. The ingredients for making those pastry sheets only had wheat flour, water and salt, and no eggs at all. Eggs are only used as a “glue” to keep the wrapped spring roll in place. In Singapore, spring rolls are also known as “popiah”.

I bought my spring roll pastry sheets at 99 cents for a packet of 25 square sheets. They always come in square sheets because it makes for easy folding. I couldn’t find the same kind of turnips that is found in Singapore (ones with brown skin, and when cooked, tastes sweet - see picture)

[picture of a turnip found in Singapore:]

So, I bought jicama (pronounced as hee-kah-ma), a tuberous root from Mexico (see picture below). It’s as close as I can get to the texture and taste of the turnip I am familiar with.

- 1 small jicama, julienned (cut into thin strips or small, matchlike pieces)
- 1 handful of shitake mushrooms, cut into small pieces
- 1/2 pound of minced pork
- Salt
- Pepper
- 2 tsp oyster sauce
- 1/2 tsp garlic
- 1/2 tsp ginger
- 1 tsp dried shrimp
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 1 packet of spring roll pastry
- 1 egg, beaten

Season the minced pork with salt and pepper and mix in the garlic and ginger as well. (Doing so will prevent the garlic and ginger from burning, if your wok is too hot.)

Stir fry the minced pork with the dried shrimp until they brown a little and you can smell the fragrance of the meat.

Add in the julienned jicama and chopped mushrooms. Mix well for about 2 mins then pour chicken stock over the mixture and stir fry for another 5 mins. Add oyster sauce to taste. Mix well. (Do not add too much oyster sauce or you will get some kind of metallic taste)

Cover the wok and allow to simmer for about 15 mins or until the jicama is tender.

Allow the cooked ingredients to cool.During this time, take out the frozen spring roll pastry sheets from the freezer. Cover them with a damp cloth and allow 30 mins for defrosting.

With a tablespoon, scoop up some of the cooked ingredients onto the pastry sheets and fold them into a roll. Use the beaten egg as a glue for your pastry sheets. (oops! no picture to show here)

Meanwhile, heat a saucepan of oil on medium heat. To test if the oil is hot enough, stick in a wooden chopstick. When you see bubbles form, you are ready to deep fry the spring roll.

When you are deep frying the spring rolls, do not put too many into the saucepan at once, or you will lower the temperature of the oil and all you get is mushy spring rolls.

Once the pastry browns, you are done. Transfer to a plate lined with kitchen towels to soak the excess oil.

Tip:

If you run out of pastry sheets and are still left with the cooked meat and jicama, you can eat that as a side dish with rice.

The spring rolls may also become a bit soft if you do not eat them immediately. To reheat, put into a pre-heated oven at 350 degrees for 15 mins and the spring rolls will become crispy again.