VIETNAM FOOD #8: Vietnamese Fried Spring Rolls (RECIPE) - VIDEO

There are many changes between Vietnamese Fried Spring Rolls which is made by Hanoian today and the initial one created by old Saigonese people. At first, there was only meat involved in this kind of meal in Saigon. This is the reason why tasters always felt dry, which mainly caused being uncomfortable for Hanoian to taste. Therefore, in the early twenties, a French lady took this meal from Saigon to Hanoi for the purpose of making money, and she found a way to re-make its ingredient in order to make it become more proper and easier for Hanoian taste. So, this meal changes into it is today.

The Hanoian Vietnamese Fried Spring Rolls has been added vegetable, process fish sauce mixed with fresh lemon and chili instead of soy sauce. This time, the meal has also changed much with a wide range of things which are arranged inside the rice paper. However, meat, cat’s ear, vermicelli, herb and egg.

Today, I am so eager to introduce to you my own method to make a dish of Vietnamese Fried Spring Rolls. Actually, it is only experience to mix necessary food materials together in my family’s way.

You can watch my video!

1. Ingredients:

• 200g minced pork
• Carrot shredded
• 10 g dried wood ear mushrooms soaked in hot water
• 10 g dried shiitake mushrooms soaked in hot water
• 30 g glass noodle
• 1 tbsp chili peppers minced
• 1 tbsp garlic minced
• 2 eggs
• 20 pcs rice paper wrapper
• Basil, Scallion, green lemon
• Fish sauce, sugar, pepper, cooking oil, salt

2. Method:
Step 1: Pre-processing all materials:
Aall ingredients are cut except eggs and rice paper. Mushrooms and vermicelli must be soaked in water until they get bigger shape and softer, then wash and chop all of them. Garlic and chili should be chopped, lemon is cut into half.!

Step 2: Mix the filling
Putting all the ingredients in a large bowl, pour into with white and yolk together, and stir the mixture, then add salt and pepper properly.

DSC02550.jpg

Step 3: Rolling
Spreading the rolling paper on the cutting board then taking a small part of kernel which is enough to put in the middle of the rice paper, fold two heads of the rice paper and roll it up.

Step 4: Frying
Heating oil in the pan until you see small bubbles around the chopstick. Then keep the heat on medium and start frying. Deep fry until they turn golden brown.

Step 5: Making sauce
Mixing water, fish sauce and sugar, stir it up until the sugar dissolve, then pour into with lemon water of a half, then chopped garlic and pepper.

3. Common failures
I still remember my poor first Vietnamese Fried Spring Rolls. It was torn and its kernel spilled out, which looked very ugly. Then, when I was able to overcome the problem of broken rolls, I encountered another problem with its color. My meat rolls were not golden and the crust was not crunchy, although I had to fry it twice.
Or sometimes just a little bit distracted, my Vietnamese Fried Spring Rolls would be burned a side .... They all are common mistakes made during the making this dish, and everyone has to go through. After these failures, I now come to my own answer and finally get the perfect rolls, though they are not as good as in the restaurant.

4. How to fix
- Problem with broken rolls:
To overcome this problem, you just need to reduce the amount of eggs in the filling and succulent vegetables. I usually only use one or two eggs so that the mixture is just enough to stick together. I also usually use carrots and leafy vegetables to limit the ability of vegetables get ripen and soften or even break the rice paper.

- The color of fried rolls:
Rice paper wrapper mainly decides the color of rolls. In the past, I used white rice paper wrapper, this kind of wrapper makes my fried meals get more white. When I replaced them with the yellow rice paper wrapper as in the video, the color of my rolls were better. In addition, you can also use grease to fry or add vinegar into cooking oil for making better color of rolls.

- Spring rolls is not crispy:
You should fry the rolls two times, the roll will be more crispy. In addition, if the heat is not high enough, fried rolls will crumble.

- Burnt rolls:
During the frying process, you should focus on and flip all sides. It is recommended to adjust fire at low or medium because the temperature of boiled oil is very high. In addition, I usually fry them by a air-fry pot once more, so rolls are often crispy. I usually fry them about 10 minutes at 160 degrees Celsius.

The above is my video as well as my own experience of making Vietnamese Fried Spring Rolls. I hope mine will be useful for you!

Thanks for watching!