Ingredients: |
Ingredients: Vegetable platter (julienned cucumbers and carrots, butter lettuce, bean sprouts, mint leaves)
6 dried Chinese mushrooms
1 tablespoon dried wood ear mushrooms (see note)
6 water chestnuts or 1/2 small jícama, peeled and chopped
4 ounces fresh or canned lump crab meat, picked over and drained
8 ounces raw shrimp, shelled, deveined and minced
12 ounces ground pork shoulder
1 medium onion, minced
4 shallots, minced
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoon nuoc mam (Vietnamese fish sauce)
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
80 small rounds rice paper (banh trang), each 6 1/2 inches in diameter
Peanut or vegetable oil, for frying
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Directions: |
Directions:Boil vermicelli. Prepare Nuoc Cham and vegetable platter. Set aside.
To prepare filling, soak both types of mushrooms in hot water until soft, about 30 minutes. Drain. Remove stems from the mushrooms and squeeze to extract liquid. Discard liquid; mince mushrooms. In a large bowl, combine mushrooms with water chestnuts, crab, shrimp, pork, onion, shallots, garlic, fish sauce, black pepper and eggs. Mix with your hands to blend. Set aside.
To assemble rolls, fill a mixing bowl with 4 cups warm water and dissolve sugar in it. The rice-paper sheets are brittle and must be handled with care. (The water is used to soften the sheets for handling. Sweetening the water helps the rice paper turn a deep golden color when fried and also produces crispier rolls.)
Work with only 4 sheets of rice paper at a time, keeping remaining sheets covered with a barely damp cloth to prevent curling. Immerse sheets, 1 at a time, in warm water. Quickly remove each sheet and spread it flat on a dry towel. Do not let sheets touch each other. The rice paper will become pliable within seconds.
Fold up bottom third of each round. Put 1 generous teaspoon of filling in the center of the folded-over portion. Press it into a compact rectangle.
Fold one side of paper, then the other side, over mixture. Roll from bottom to top to completely enclose filling. Continue until all mixture is used.
If possible, fry in 2 skillets. Pour 1 to 1 1/2 inches of oil into each skillet and heat to 325 degrees. Working in batches, add some of the rolls to each skillet, but do not crowd or let them touch, or they will stick together.
Fry over moderate heat 10 to 12 minutes, turning often, until rolls are golden and crisp. Remove rolls with tongs and drain on paper towels. Keep warm in a slow oven (300 degrees) while frying remaining rolls. To eat, wrap a butter lettuce leaf around a Cha Gio, along with a few strands of noodles and ingredients from vegetable platter; dip in Nouc Cham. |
This recipe for FRIED SPRING ROLLS (CHA GIO) is from