Under a Blue Moon

 

One of my very first postings on this blog (going on three years of me blathering) was on making Spring Rolls or Lumpia so this is a bit of a repeat.  I think my photography has gotten a little bit better since then and I wanted this post to be a little more educational than that first one.

I'm not entirely sure what the difference between egg rolls and Spring rolls is.  I do believe it can depend on the nationality of your roll.  A Vietnamese Spring roll might be very different than a Thai or Chinese Spring roll.  Some people even go so far as to say that if it has any sort of meat in it then it is not a Spring Roll but rather an egg roll. 

These are Andrea Spring Rolls.  I like my rolls to have a combination of veggies, chicken and shrimp in them. 

First I precooked a boneless chicken breast in a saute pan with a little bit of olive oil.  I also boiled about a 1/3 lb. of shrimp in water, a splash of rice vinegar and some Old Bay seasoning.  When it had cooled I finely diced the lot of it.

Then I chopped up some savoy cabbage, green onion, crimini mushrooms and some carrot and sauteed it all together in a hot pan.

 

When the cabbage was just starting to soften I threw the veggie mixture into a bowl with the diced chicken and shrimp and some finely chopped fresh cilantro.

I drizzled on a little bit of sesame oil and a splash or two soy sauce and mixed it all up.  That's it for the filling.

 

Look – here's my "thank you for coming" pile.  Anyone know what that is from?

 

Now we are ready to assemble the rolls.  I used smaller wrappers, about six inches square.  I would have preferred larger ones but the backwater, gastronomically challenged grocery store near where I live didn't have them.  

Lay one wrapper flat in front of you (is that overstating the obvious?  It's not likely anyone is going to make the mistake of laying in on their head or behind them) and place about two heaping tablespoons of filling in the middle.

 

Fold up the point closest to you over the filling and then fold the sides in.  Please ignore my spotty hands.  That one spot near my right thumb is a corn fritter related injury.

 

Roll the, umm, roll away from you, moistening the top corner before the final roll.  Look at this action shot folks.  My fingers were FLYING!

 

There you have it.  A nice little roll. 

Now do it eleventy hundred more times

 

Now here's where I mix it up a bit.  Instead of frying them I baked these.  After last week's corn fritter fry up I didn't think Rick couldn't handle me splattering the kitchen and myself with flaming hot oil quite so soon.

So I liberally brushed these with some oil and baked in a 425 F oven for about 15 – 20 minutes.  Flipping half-way through.  I don't think our waist lines were spared but the kitchen was. 

I made a simple soy chili dipping sauce for these.  I really just winged it.  I'll post the Spring roll recipe below but honestly for the dipping sauce I just threw things in until it tasted good to me. 

What I combined was light soy sauce, sesame oil, chili paste, chili flakes, minced garlic, about 1/2 tsp. of sugar and about a tsp. of honey.  Let it sit for 45 minutes for the flavors to meld.

We ate every last one of them.

 

Andrea's Spring Rolls

1 boneless chicken breast, cooked and minced (I sauteed mine, you could poach if you like)
1/3 lb. cooked shrimp, minced
1/3 Savoy cabbage, finely sliced
1 carrot, jullienned into small matchsticks
4 Crimini mushrooms, thinly sliced into matchsticks
3 green onions finely minced (use about 1/2 the green part)
2 Tbsp. fresh cilantro, finely minced
1 tsp. sesame oil
1 tsp. soy sauce

Springroll wrappers

Vegetable oil

In a large saute pan heat about 2 tbsp. vegetable oil over medium high heat.  Add cabbage, carrot, onion and mushroom.  Cook, stirring constantly for about four minutes; until the cabbage starts to soften. 

Add vegetable mixture to the cooked chicken, shrimp and cilantro.  Drizzle with the sesame oil and soy sauce and toss well.

Lay out Spring roll wrappers and start assembling rolls.  Place on a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with olive oil cooking spray.   Cover until ready to cook.

Now you can either fry these or bake these. 

For frying:

Heat approximately three inches of vegetable oil to 350 degrees.  Cook in small batches until golden brown, about 3-4 minutes.

For baking:

Brush Spring rolls liberally with vegetable oil on both sides.  Place cookie sheet into a pre-heated 425 F degree oven.  Cook approximately 20 minutes, turning the Spring rolls over about half way through.

Serve with your favorite dipping sauce.

 

I keep seeing blog posting for clafoutis.  Must be the proliferation of stone fruit that is in season (I think of clafoutis as being a stone fruit dish) right now.

I love a rustic dessert.  Something that doesn't require much fussing.  I used this recipe  but I substitued sweet, dark cherries for the plums.  Because our grocery store, in the agricultural mecca that is California, did not have plums.  Can you even imagine?  Isn't this prime plum season? 

Guests arrived last night, we had a nice dinner and plenty of wine (no sewing as we have a no drinking and cutting rule) and went to bed fairly early so we could get cracking on the sewing first thing this morning.

I've been taking pictures as we go along so I'll post those in the next day or so.