Homemade Spring Roll Wrappers

I've made my own dumpling dough, scallion pancakes, steamed bun...but never tried spring rolls. That had to change. I was surprised how difficult it was to find a recipe for the wrappers that sounded reasonable (you know, like it would actually work) but I found the recipe I ended up using at Penniless Parenting-and I trust her. If you aren't already reading her blog, you should be, unless of course you are one of those people that likes to toss money away. You aren't the sort of people that like tossing money away-are you? I didn't think so-I keep pretty nice company over here at this little blog.

Anyway-the egg rolls came up beautifully, the boys devoured them, and I have eight more uncooked ones waiting in the freezer for the next time I'm struck by a desire to deep fry things. Yeah, you're going to need the kettle for this-but come on, there's vegetables in it. Use good oil and you can almost (well not really) claim this as health food (OK not at all).

The recipe for the dough may be found HERE (yes, I'm forcing you to click over there because the tutorial is excellent). The filling I used is as follows:

1/2 head small cabbage, finely shredded
1 red bell pepper, finely sliced in matchsticks
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
3 carrots, finely chopped in matchsticks
1 tablespoon dehydrated onion flakes
1/2 teaspoon dehydrated garlic granules
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1 heaping teaspoon 5 spice powder
A splash of soy sauce
A small splash of sesame oil
Extra oil for the pan


Heat a large pan or wok and cook everything until softened. Cool before using to fill wrappers. I made mine ahead and kept them lightly covered in the fridge until i was ready to fry several hours later-this worked just fine. To freeze the extras, I packed them in pastic containers between layers of wax paper.


I also served a stir fry of carrots, peppers, green beans, onion, garlic, water chestnuts, and tofu over rice. The tofu can be fried well ahead (even a couple days) and keeps well tightly wrapped in the fridge. I find that making this sort of thing in stages is much easier than trying to slap dinner on the table come six PM. There's plenty of stir-fry for leftovers tomorrow, and I have frozen egg rolls waiting to go. The only reason my life isn't a pathetic mess is good time management skills-really, I don't have brains, looks or money, but organisation? Oh yeah, I have that one down.