Thai Spring Rolls Recipe

People love Thai spring rolls, and although they’re not often prepared at home, there is really no compelling reason why you can’t make some up!

You can buy the spring roll wrappers in any Asian grocery store, and once you’ve got these at the ready, you are halfway home.

So surprise and delight your family and friends with a tray of hot and fresh spring rolls before your next Thai style dinner.

Thai Spring Rolls

• ½ lb of ground pork
• 1/3 pound of shrimp, without shells or tails
• Glass noodles, ¼ pound (100 grams) dry weight (these transparent noodles are made from mung beans and are common in Thai cooking.)
• ¼ cup of clouds ear mushrooms (you can substitute julienned cabbage or carrots here, if desired)
• 1 Tbls of cilantro root, finely chopped (Thais often use the white root part of cilantro – which gives a somewhat garlicky/oniony flavor). Use an extra tsp of garlic if you can’t get cilantro with the root attached
• 2 Tbls of minced garlic
• 1 tsp of black pepper, freshly ground
• 2 Tbls of soy sauce
• 1 Tbls of sugar
• I package of spring roll wrappers (These look like very thin crepes)

Instructions

1. Soak the glass noodles in a bowl of cool water until they have softened – 5 minutes or so. Once they’ve softened, cut them into 2 inch segments
2. Chop the shrimp into pieces that will fit comfortably in your spring rolls – whatever size you prefer here will work
3. Chop the mushrooms into julienned slices
4. Heat some oil in a wok or heavy skillet and fry the pork until it has just browned. When the pork is about halfway cooked, add the shrimp and mushrooms in, and once the shrimp and the pork are cooked through, toss in the noodles, the garlic, the pepper and the soy sauce and the sugar – and cook stirring, for another minute or so.
5. Taste this mixture for seasoning, and add more soy sauce, pepper or sugar, as needed.
6. To roll the spring rolls, add a couple of spoonfuls of this mixture to the center of the spring roll wrapper. Take the end closest to you on the counter and fold it over the filling. Take the two sides to the right and left (The ends) and fold them in towards the center, and then continue rolling the spring roll away from you, until you have a nice neat tube (this is hard to explain…watch the video).
7. To seal the end, just rub a little water around the rim of the outside. This water will cause the spring roll wrapper to stick to itself. If for whatever reason they aren’t sealing well, you can use a paste made from a little flour and water to do the trick.
8. Repeat with more wrappers until you have used up your filling.
9. Heat some oil for deep frying to 365, and fry in batches until golden brown – a couple of minutes.

Delicious! Serve with sweet Thai spring roll sauce for dipping.

(If you can’t buy spring roll sauce, you can make your own!)

Spring Roll Sauce

• ½ cup white vinegar
• ¾ cup of sugar
• 2 tsps of salt
• 1 tsp of fresh red chili, minced
• ½ Tbls of garlic, minced

Boil all of this together until thick.