Celebrating holiday traditions is one important aspect we do in our household. We want to raise the children to have deep roots in both cultures (vietnamese and jamaican). Our kiddos are so familiar with chinese new year and making deep fried spring rolls is always a staple for our dinner. Both kiddos enjoy the whole process or preparing for chinese new year, such as cleaning the house and making sure all the laundry is done. Its a tradition that I grew up with, for as long as I could remember, making sure the house was clean, no garbage should be in the house, laundry is done, etc because it was believed that how you bring in the new year sets the tone for the whole year. But my kiddos favourite part would have to be eating some yummy deep friend spring rolls and ofcourse the red money pouches.
Deep Fried Spring Rolls
Prep time: 30 minutes Cooking time: 30 minutes Yields: 20 large spring rolls
Ingredients:
- 1 pound of ground pork
- 1 pound of minced shrimp
- 1 large carrot
- 1/2 onion
- 2 cups of vermicelli
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp pepper
- 1 pound of dried mushroom
- 2 large egg
- 1 pack of large spring roll wrapping paper
Directions:
1. Soak dried mushroom into a warm bowl of water.
2. Heat a pan to medium high heat and start cooking the ground pork. Season with salt, sugar and pepper. Cook the pork only half way (for about 10 minutes). Let the pork cool down.
3. Once pork is cooled down, combine the ground pork and minced shrimp into mixing bowl.
4. Boil water and place vermicelli noodles into the hot and let the noodles double in size. Drain the noodles and cut into small pieces and place into a large mixing bowl.
5. Chop up onion into fine pieces and place into the pork/shrimp mixture.
6. Peel and grate carrots and place into the pork/shrimp mixture.
7. Once the dried mushrooms have doubled in size, chop them up into small pieces and place into pork/shrimp mixture.
8. Season the pork/shrimp mixture with salt, sugar and pepper.
9. Beat the large egg and add to the pork/shrimp mixture. Mix up the ingredients well and let it rest for about 10 minutes in the fridge.
10. In a small bowl beat the remaining egg and set aside.
11. Unravel all the spring roll wrapping paper and place a damp towel on top so the wrappers won't dry out.
12. Preheat a pan of oil about 3 inches deep (about medium/high heat)
13. Once the pork/shrimp mixture has chilled take out of the fridge. Place a large spring roll wrapping paper onto the counter. Have one point of the wrapper towards you, so the wrapping looks like a diamond. Place a large spoonful of the pork/shrimp mixture into the corner of the point and start rolling the wrapper.
14. Once all the spring rolls have been formed, start placing them into the hot oil. Fry each side for about 5 minutes or until golden brown.
15. After the spring rolls have been fried, set onto a wire rack to let it cool.
16. You can enjoy the spring rolls in many different ways, with plum sauce or a vietnamese fish sauce blend (called nouc mam).