Nary's Spring Rolls

Nary is my good friend from Philadelphia.  She is originally from Cambodia and was generous in sharing with me both incredible food and inspiring stories from her childhood.  Before I moved from Philadelphia she taught me the secrets of making spring rolls.  She also attempted to teach me how to make Pho but I was too busy eating to focus and now every time I get the Pho craving I regret my lack of attention to the process. 

This weekend we aren't doing much besides listening to General Conference.  When we lived in Philadelphia our small Church branch would gather for a Conference pot luck and since most of the members were Southeast Asian, there were always piles of spring rolls to gorge on.  So in the memory we made them today.

Springs rolls are not at all difficult to make, it just takes the right ingredients and time.  I stopped by the Asian market last night and picked up just what I needed, spring roll wrappers, oyster sauce, bean threads and sweet chili dipping sauce.

I already had ground turkey and ground pork in the freezer and the rest was picked up at a regular grocery store, cabbage, carrots, celery, jicama, onion and garlic.

You start the process by shredding the cabbage and carrots.  I just ran mine through a food processor but before I was lucky enough to own such a great tool I shredded it by hand with a vegetable peeler.  Like this:

The jicama and celery should be finely minced and added to the shredded cabbage and carrots.  Reserve the garlic and onions for the meat mixture.  Dump a few spoonfuls of salt over the minced and shredded veggies to extract excess liquid.

Squeeze out the excess liquid with your hands or ring it out in some cheese cloth.  You do not want the mix watery.

Now in a separate bowl you can mix the meat.  On this occasion I used 1lb. of ground turkey and 1 lb. of ground pork.  It's been a few years since we've made these and we determined today that was too much meat.  Also, I did not realize one of the meats was pre seasoned and that had an affect on the over all taste.  They were still good, just not as authentic.

To the meat mixture add minced garlic ( I think we used 4 or 5), a few tablespoons of oyster sauce, a few small spoonfuls of sugar and fresh ground pepper.  At this point Nary use to mix a little, cook it in the microwave and test for flavor, hers always tasted good.

Now drop the bean threads in very hot water for about 3 minutes.  When they are soft strain them then drop in cold water.  Shake out excess water and cut them up a bit before tossing them into the veggie mix.

Mix it all together in a very large bowl.  I sometimes find it is easiest to use my hands for this.  

We had 100 wrappers to roll today.  It is a group effort and after careful training I was discriminating in which rolls would pass my inspection.  I explained that these were not over stuffed burritos or even traditional fat egg rolls but light barely filled spring rolls.  They had to be rolled carefully and tight enough to avoid spilling out during the frying process.  Everyone participated in the training but only Paul and James graduated to the actual rolling process.  Maryanna was assigned to carefully peel the wrappers apart and make sure they were covered with a damp cloth and Clara got to dip her finger in an egg mixture then help seal the wrapper. 

Paul manned the deep fryer (the same one Nary gave to me as a going away gift several years ago) and I kept the rolling production in motion.

The kids couldn't resist eating them hot out of the oil.

They kept reaching for them and it was impossible to keep up with the demand.

Here's a close up

And here they are almost gone.

Everyone loved them!  Not something we'd make every day but definitely fun for Conference weekend.