Make Fresh Spring Rolls Stay Fresh (longer)

This past weekend was my son's first birthday, so I was on a mission to cook a lot of food by myself. I even planned to bake his own mini cake with cupcakes, but then I got sick and didn't feel like doing all that cooking anymore. I decided a day or two earlier to cater half the food and order a cake. Fortunately I did that because even after waking up at 4:30 in the morning, I almost didn't finish cooking everything. And fortunately for my guests, they got to eat a yummy cake since I am not the best baker. :P It just feels good to make something yourself, especially for your little one, you know? Oh well, next time. Since I bought so much ingredients, I might as well attempt to make some cupcakes from scratch this week.

One of the things I did make were fresh spring rolls. I think the best spring rolls are the ones you make at home, because you can put anything you like in them and they are truly fresh. I have since learned of a new method to help keep them stay fresh longer. This is important if you're making them for a potluck or a large crowd and they won't be eaten right away. In any case, spring rolls are meant to be eaten the same day, within hours. They are not meant to be refrigerated or saved for the next day. Try it and you'll find out! :D

I've been making these for several years, but they just never turn out how I like them to. I even made them once for my husband's potluck at work and he told me they didn't look too good by lunch time. I woke up at 5AM to help him kiss ass for nothing. :p I think I finally found the
secret(s). After prepping them 5AM in the morning, and people didn't eat until after 1:00 afternoon, the ones I made this past weekend still stayed fresh. By fresh, I mean the wrapper did not tear (as bad) and the wrapper stayed soft (not rubbery like some in the past). Having the wrapper stay in tact is important because it helps keep the rest of the stuff inside stay fresh as well.

Makes about 30 rolls

Ingredients:
Rice Vermicelli Noodles

1 lb pork loin chops
Salt
2 tbsp Hoisin sauce
1 tbsp Oyster Sauce
1/2 tsp Soy Sauce

1 lb uncooked shrimp, deveined and peeled

Red leaf lettuce
2-3 Cucumbers
3-4 Carrots
2 bunches of cilantro

1 package of spring roll rice paper, must be Three Ladies Brand

Method:
1. Cook the vermicelli noodles according to package instructions. Make sure the noodles come out soft and rinse it under cold water to get rid of the extra starch. Drain the noodles and set aside. It's important to have the noodles (air) dry. This is why I do this step first, but I'm usually multi-tasking. ;)

2. Set the oven to broil at 500 degrees. Mix the sauces and set aside. Prep the pork by seasoning it lightly with salt. Broil the pork for about 15 minutes on one side until cooked (fat around the meat should be brown and almost crispy looking). Turn the meat over and cook for an additional 5-10 minutes or until cooked through. Once the meat is browned, this is when you put the sauce on the meat (I use a basting brush). Let it cook for less than a minute until the sauce starts to sizzle and brown on the meat. Turn over and repeat. Once the meat is cooled, slice the meat into thin strips. Set the cooked meat aside.

3. Boil the shrimp in a pot of boiling water until pink. Drain and set aside. You'll need to slice the shrimp in half. You can do it now or later.

4. Wash all the vegetables and cilantro. After washing the lettuce and cilantro, I use a salad spinner to spin dry them. It really makes a difference. If you don't have one, you can use paper towels to pat dry the lettuce and cilantro. It's important to have all your ingredients dry (except for the cucumbers, of course).

6. Peel the carrots and cucumbers and cut them into matchsticks. I've been using the Titan peelers to peel all my fruits and veggies as well as to julienne my carrots and cucumbers. I love it. :)


The cucumbers will be the wettest/moistest ingredient. If it has too much liquid you can simply drain out some of the liquid, but not too much since that's part of the taste. When rolling, I usually put the cucumbers in the middle anyway, so it doesn't touch the wrapper. Here's all my ingredients lined up on the table and I am ready to wrap and roll. I didn't cut my shrimp in half in these pictures because I had so many leftover and decided to use the whole shrimp. I actually like the taste of a half shrimp better, so I would stick with that. Also with the cilantro, you can use the sprigs of cilantro as pictured or simply use the leaves.





Now, comes the "secret" part after doing some Googling and experimenting. What I used this past weekend was a package of already cut quarters of the spring roll wrappers. I forgot to take a picture of these, but I drew a line here to show how they would look like when you see them in the stores. The Three Ladies Brand carries this and that is what I used. In the pictures below, I cut them in half as per other instructions, but honestly, cutting them in quarters tasted better to me. Some people might just use two wrappers entirely, but I do not like the taste of a thick wrapper and that's why the quarter sheet is the way to go.




The quarter sheet should be placed in the middle along with the full sheet and dunked in hot water. The quarter sheet helps hold the rest of the ingredients better and avoid the tearing in the spring rolls, without that extra wrapper taste.



Initially, I start out with hot water only because it's my first wrapper and it softens it quickly. I use the same water for about 10 rolls and start with fresh hot water all over again. I usually place new wrappers in the water as I am rolling the other that I just prepped.


Take out the sheets and place it onto a large plate that's been covered with a clean dish cloth. The dish cloth helps absorb a lot of the water and this is an important step as well. Sometimes, I use an extra dish cloth to absorb the excess water on the top of the wrapper.


Start out by placing a lettuce leaf on the bottom of the wrapper (I like to just use the outer parts of the leaf because it's softer and won't tear the wrapper), followed by some noodles, cucumbers, carrots, cilantro and pork.


Roll, tighten, roll...place the shrimp and ready to roll them over as well.


Wrap in the sides of the wrapper in and tightly roll.

When I made these for a large gathering, I place them in one of those large aluminum catering trays that come with a plastic top. I try not to place the spring rolls close to each other, and never on top of each other without placing something in between them. I used parchment paper in this case and that worked well. Instead of the saran wrap, I just put the plastic dome/top over the tray and that helped (along with other steps mentioned above) made the spring rolls stay fresh for hours. Using the Three Ladies Brand produced that soft texture that I like. Some other brands taste rubbery-like to me. Hope this helps you out!

*Sauces*
Sauces deserve their own posting, so one of these days I'll make a posting about the different sauces that can go with spring rolls, egg rolls and rice rolls. Everyone likes theirs a little different.

In the meantime, this is one of the quick sauces I use for spring rolls as well as egg rolls. Sometimes I add a little fish sauce, lime juice, Thai peppers as well as peanuts to this sauce. It's one of the quickest and yummy sauces you can make!

California Summer Rolls

I bought some of these summer rolls made by a local sushi place. Even though they are very plain, they taste so refreshing to me. I love cucumbers and avocados so maybe that's why I like these. They are like the California sushi rolls without the rice and seaweed. I also really like the spring roll wrapper that they used. It's very soft and not like the ones I have used before. I finally bought this one brand recommended by some people and I think I found the right wrapper! It tastes exactly like the one the sushi place uses.

Anyway, on a hot summer day when I don't feel like eating anything too heavy, these are great. These are also great because there is hardly any cooking involved. Making the tamago (omelette) is pretty easy.

Makes about a dozen rolls

Ingredients
1 cucumber
1 avocado
1 small package of imitation crab/lobster sticks or cooked shrimp
Tamago (Japanese omelette)
Spring Roll wrapper (Three Ladies Brand)
Spring Roll sauce (see picture)

1. Prep and cook the Tamago. See recipe below.
2. Cut the cucumber and avocado into long slices or strips (about 2 inches long, 1/2inch wide). Cut the crab or lobster sticks in half lengthwise. If using cooked shrimp, cut the shrimp in half lenthwise as well.
3. Fill a large deep bowl with hot water and put in a single sheet of wrapper into the bowl. I work with just one wrapper at a time to make it easier. Once the wrapper is soft and pliable, take out the wrapper and put it on a plate. You can put the wrapper on top of a dish cloth too, to soak up some of the water.
4. Assemble on top of the wrapper with one seafood stick or 2 shrimp haves. Top it with 1-2 strips of cucumber, 1 strip of avocado, and 1 strip of the tamago. These ingredients should all be clumped together. Then roll the right and left sides of the wrapper in, and then finally rolling into a roll. I didn't take any step by step photos this time, so feel free to reference here on how to roll these.


Tamago Ingredient and Recipe:
3 eggs
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp light soy sauce

1. Mix all ingredients well.
2. It's kind of tricky explaining the cooking part, so I recommend just following some videos on YouTube such as this one. I just used a regular round non-stick pan to make mine.
3. Cut the omelette into strips and set aside.

This is the lazy sauce I used for these rolls. This is also the same sauce I used (and mixed) for the rice rolls. I usually make a homemade sauce for other types of spring/summer rolls, but too lazy! Eventually, I'll make some more and different rolls, so maybe I'll post those and the sauce one of these days.

Malaysian Enche Kabin Boxing Chicken Wings

I've been meaning to try and make these for a while now since I've discovered Lily's blog last year. I guess it was the deep-frying that delayed it. As much as I don't like deep frying foods, I have deep fried foods 3x now in the last two weeks. One of those (orange chicken) did not turn out. Guess I'll just stick to Panda Garden's orange chicken lol. There might be a 4th deep frying session coming soon since I've been meaning to make some egg rolls. Those are too tedious though! :P

Ok, back to this recipe. This was very good. I couldn't find a meat curry powder, so I just used like two different kinds of curry. A powdered one and a paste one. I just mixed it all together with the other stuff. I think it still turned out good. I don't think I would bother deep frying these next time though. I might just pan fry it first and then bake it in the oven or vice versa. When the wings were done, I thought they tasted good, but nothing spectacular. It was when I dipped it in the sauce was when I thought to myself, "Yum, these are good!" I really liked the sauce. It went well with the wings. To think I was going to skip making the sauce! Good thing I didn't. I have a new favorite dipping sauce. The dijon mustard made a difference. I rate this recipe 4/5. Anyway, here's the recipe from Lily's blog.

Malaysian Curry Puffs

Wow, been away for almost a month now. I've been cooking off and on still, but just haven't bothered to post anything. I was planning on making some egg rolls two weekends ago, but then came upon a recipe for these curry puffs, and decided to try making these instead since I've never had them. For the dough, I tried two different recipes. One from Rasa Malaysia and then another from Lily's Wai Sek Hong. I intially tried Lily's first, but the dough just didn't look right. It was not soft nor what's the word? Flexible? It was too dry. I tried adding a little more water, but it still didn't look right. Fortunately, I went back to other recipe from Rasa Malaysia and the dough looked much better. Since these were my first time making them, it took me a while to get the dough rolling and wrapped correctly. The first one I made, I used too much dough and so it didn't cook thoroughly. It works best if you just use a small ball and then roll it out with a roller pin. The oil had to be just the right temperature as well. You want it hot, but not too hot. When I finally got done, these didn't blow my mind away like "Ymmmm, these are so good! I just have to make them again!" Unfortunately, no. They were just ok. I don't consider myself a picky eater either. Overall, I would rate these a 3/5. I would recommend making these if you like to try something different and if you like fried foods. I really liked how the crust turned out though. It was buttery and flaky. Boy, did I use a lot of oil for this recipe. A lot of oil in the filling, and of course, the deep frying. That's why I hate deep frying. Too much oil. I also ate these as leftovers the next day, and for some reason, I thought it tasted better the next day.

Cilantro Garlic Chicken Wings

Cilantro, green onions and garlic are the main herbs that I use in my cooking (when I cook Asian). Although I have been using a lot of lemongrass lately as well, thanks to my mom who supplied me a good amount of frozen lemongrass to make the Hmong boiled chicken for my post-pregnancy. I have never used lemongrass so much before until I started this blog.

But today’s subject is on my cilantro and garlic chicken wings. It’s actually more than these two ingredients, but I’d say these two ingredients add a nice touch. I first tasted these while we were visiting my brother and his family, and my SIL made it for us. My husband liked them a lot so I attempted to replicate her recipe when I got home. These are fairly easy to make and quite tasty! I plan on trying out more recipes for chicken wings as I do love them.

Serves 6-10

Ingredients:
1 package of chicken wings (about 3.5 lbs)
2 tbsp hoisin sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tsp of Maggi seasoning sauce (in Asian aisle) or light soy sauce
1 large garlic clove, minced
1/3 cup of cilantro, chopped

Method:
Cut wings at joint and throw away tips. Place wings on a foil-lined baking sheet and set the oven to broil at 500 degrees. Broil wings for 20-25 minutes or until browned. Flip wings over and broil the other side of the wings for 15-20 minutes or until browned. While chicken is cooking, mince garlic and set aside. Chop cilantro and set aside.



When the wings are ready, place a large cooking pan and set it on high heat. Immediately transfer the wings from the baking sheet over to the hot pan and add the minced garlic. Stir the garlic so that it is evenly distributed among the wings. Cook about one minute or until garlic is fragrant, but not burnt.



Add all the sauces into the pan and stir immediately. The wings will start to char and this is when you will add the cilantro. Stir and cook for a few seconds just until the cilantro becomes tender. Remove the pan from heat, then transfer the wings to a serving platter and serve.




My sister made this and she and her family liked it:

Indonesian Ginger Chicken Wings

Wings are my favorite part of the chicken. They're white meat, but very juicy and have a lot of taste. Besides, I just like meat with bones period (except fish). I made these the other night and brought leftovers to work. People came in and told me it smelled like "pizza" or "bourbon chicken." I can understand bourbon chicken because they're both similar, but pizza?

Recipe adapted from Food Network

Ingredents:
1 cup honey
3/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup minced garlic (8 to 12 cloves)
1/2 cup peeled and grated fresh ginger root
3 lbs of chicken wings

Method:
1. Cook the honey, soy sauce, garlic, and ginger root in a small saucepan over low heat until the honey is melted. Put chicken in a large bowl, add marinade, cover tightly with saran wrap, and marinade overnight in the refrigerator.

2. When ready to cook, set the oven to 500 degrees on broil. Cook wings for about 30 minutes or until skin is slightly charred. Turn wings over and cook the other side until slightly charred.

Rice Rolls (fawm kauv)

These are one of my favorite appetizers. Actually, I just eat them as a meal since eating a couple of them really fills me up. I'm not sure where these originated from. I know Vietnamese make these too. I'll just give credit back to the Chinese since they invented everything ;). I love eating these, but I hate making these. It sure takes a long time and by the time I'm done making them, there's only a few left because there's usually other people (or myself) eating these as I make these. It takes a lot of practice to perfect the wrapper. I've been making these for years, and they still don't come out consistently perfect each time. I always have a few that don't turn out. The first and last ones are usually the worst ones, which ends up being tossed. However, ever since I found this brand of flour, my wrapper has been turning out pretty good each time. I hope they don't discontinue or change anything about this flour because it's the best flour I have used so far. The instructions to mix is even right on since I've always used more water than what the instructions on the bag says. Excuse the poor picture quality. I made these at dinner time and I don't know why I didn't use my flash. Taking good pictures and cooking at the same time is more difficult than I thought.


Pretty simple ingredients...I like to use Jimmy Dean sausage; it gives a lot of flavor. I usually just use the Regular kind, but I had the Hot kind in my freezer.


This is the brand of rice flour I use. It's the best one I have used. NOT ALL BRANDS OF FLOUR ARE CREATED EQUAL.


Put sausage and ground pork in pan at high heat.


Cook meat until cooked through, stirring constantly until meat is no longer in large clumps.


Drain the meat once cooked to rid the juices and grease.


Put drained meat back into pan and add 2 tbsp of hoisin sauce and 1 tbsp of oyster sauce. Stir until mixed well with meat.


Add 2/3 cup of chopped cilantro and 2/3 cup of sliced green onions.


Cook until cilantro and onions are tender, less than a minute.


In a large bowl, mix the flour according to package instructions. Scoop up a full laddle of the flour mixture and put it into a non-stick pan that's been heated on medium heat.


Using the pan, stir the flour mixture until it forms a good circle around the pan. It is important to use a good non-stick pan (very few or no scratches!).


Cover the pan for about 1-2 minutes. Wrapper will be ready when it is somewhat bubbly and you can see it lifting off the pan. (Sorry, I forgot to take a pic of this). As you can see, I had two pans going...it helps make these things faster. Once it is ready, transfer it immediately to a flat surface such as a plate or you can use foil. If it does not come off of pan easily, it's probably not ready yet and try putting it back on the stove (covered) for a few seconds.


Wrapping is pretty easy. Just spread enough meat around the wrapper and roll away. I like to use a lot of meat in mine because I like it that way!


Serve with a side of sauce of your choice. I just buy the ready-made sweet chili sauce and add some chopped peanuts, more Thai chilis, and some fish sauce to it since I like it a little more spicy.

Makes about 40 rolls (or 20 per package)

Ingredients

Filling:
1 lb of ground pork
1 package of Jimmy Dean Regular sausage (1 lb)
2 tbsp of hoisin sauce
1 tbsp of oyster sauce
2/3 cup of chopped cilantro
2/3 cup of chopped green onions

Wrapper:
2 packages of steamed rice flour
9 cups of water
2 tbsp of vegetable oil

Sauce:
sweet chili sauce
chopped peanuts
Thai chilis to taste
fish sauce to taste


Method:
1. Cook sausage meat and ground pork in pan on high heat until cooked through.
2. Drain the meat so juices and oil run off. Once drained, put meat back into pan. Add hoisin and oyster sauces. Stir to mix well with meat.
3. Add cilantro and green onions to the pan and cook until both are tender, less than a minute.
4. Mix the flour mixture according to package instructions (4 1/2 cups of water and 1 tbsp of oil per package) in a large bowl. Stir until the flour is completely dissolved. It's important to keep stirring the mixture each time you pour a new laddle into the pan so that the flour keeps dissolving (it tends to form back).
5. Set a good non-stick pan on medium-low heat. Once the pan is warm, pour a laddle of the flour mixture into the pan. Using the pan handle, stir mixture until it forms a circle in pan. Cover immediately. Cover for about 1-2 minutes or until wrapper turns somewhat bubbly. Wrapper will be ready when you can see it lifting off the pan.
6. Once wrapper is ready, immediately transfer it onto a flat surface such as a sheet of foil or a flat pan. If wrapper does not come off of pan easily, put pan back on stove and cover for a few more seconds.
7. Spread a spoonful of meat over the wrapper until evenly distributed around wrapper. Start wrapping by folding in the left and right sides of the wrapper, then fold in the top over to form a roll.

This is one of the sauces I make for my rice rolls. I buy this ready sauce from Amazon or your local Asian grocery store, and add some fish sauce, more Thai chili peppers, lime juice, garlic and peanuts to it.


Another sauce I make is simply just pound garlic with red Thai chili peppers. Then add roasted peanuts and pound it together in a mortar until well blended. Add fish sauce, lime juice, and a dash of sugar to it. Add water to the sauce if you prefer a more liquid sauce. I tend to like mine on the pasty side.