Janice Tripepi

Pork & Prawn Spring Rolls

Durbanites are experiencing what could almost be described as an autumn. If only the palm trees would change into beautiful shades of red or yellow. HO Hum! I am very excited with the two packets of fresh chestnuts that I bought at our local fruit and veg shop yesterday! I shall have them in a dish and roasting over a fire by the end of the weekend. I just love chestnuts … and you don’t often come across them fresh!

Our recent trip up to Champagne Sports in the Drakensberg for Easter meant a fair amount of padkos to feed the six of us and for a change I decided to make some spring rolls. I know this sounds a bit unusual as a padkos but I had both pork mince and a packet of prawns that needed to be used up… so spring rolls it was. I made the spring rolls the day before we left for the Berg and cooked a few for a snack and fried the rest the next day before we got on the road. I used a recipe from The Australian Women’s Weekly New Asian Cooking Book. I didn’t have all of the ingredients so I had to make a few changes and omitted one or two bits. But then that’s the joy of cooking isn’t it.

 Deep Fried Prawn & Pork Spring Rolls

 Makes 16 – 18

Ingredients

 2Tbs oil

 2 cloves garlic, chopped

 3cm ginger grated

 100g Pork Mince

Finely chop all of your ingredients.

 100g Chicken Mince – I didn’t have any to I used 125g Pork Mince & 125g Prawn Meat

 50g prawn meat, finely chopped

 2tsp sesame oil

  2 celery sticks, finely chopped

 1 small carrot finely chopped

  1/2 cup water chestnuts chopped – I left these out as I didnt have any!

  4 spring onions, chopped

  1 cup finely shredded Chinese Cabbage

   ½ cup chicken stock

  1Tbs cornflour

   2Tbs oyster sauce

   1Tbs soy sauce

   ½ tsp each of salt and white pepper

  1/4 cup cornflour, extra

  1/3 cup water

  36 small spring roll wrappers

  Oil, for deep frying

  dipping sauce – or sweet chilli sauce  * I have included a link to a fabulous Kylie Kwong Dipping Sauce at the end of this recipe.

Method

Heat 1Tbs oil in a wok or frying pan, add the garlic and ginger and stir for 30 seconds.

Fry your garlic and ginger

Add the pork, chicken and prawn, stir for 3 minutes or until cooked. Transfer to a bowl and stir in the sesame oil. Set aside to cool.

Once fried set aside to cool.

Wipe the wok, heat the remaining oil, add the celery, carrot, chestnuts, spring onion and cabbage and stir fry for about 2 minutes.

As you can see I didn't have Chinese Cabbage - I used a normal cabbage from Carols Vegetable Garden.

In a bowl, stir the chicken stock, cornflour, oyster sauce, soy sauce, salt and pepper until smooth.

Add to the vegetables; stir until thickened. Stir in the meat mixture.

Combine your meat & stir fried veggies with the cornflour mixture.

In a small bowl, mix the extra cornflour with the water until smooth.

Place 1 spring roll wrapper on a work surface with a corner facing you. Brush all edges with a little cornflour paste.

Brush the cornflour paste onto the outer edge of the spring roll pastry.

Spread 1Tbs of the filling across the bottom corner of the wrapper.

Place some of the mixture on the bottom corner.

Fold the bottom corner up over the filling, tuck in the sides and roll up securely.

I popped a sprig of fresh basil on top of the mixture.

Repeat with the remaining wrappers and filling.

All ready for the frying pan.

Heat the oil in a large pan and cook the rolls in batches for 2-3 minutes, until crisp and golden.

Remember to lay each spring roll into the hot oil AWAY from yourself to avoid getting burnt by splatter.

Drain on paper towels and serve with your choice of dipping sauce.

Serve with your favourite dipping sauces.

Here is the link to the Recipe for Kylie Kwong’s delicious Hot & Sour Dipping Sauce, a recipe from her fantastic cook book “My China”, which I used recently.

Kylie Kwongs Hot & Sour Dipping Sauce .... it's yummy!

Here is another link to some Fresh Thai Style Spring Rolls which are really great for a quick lunch. My Daniele makes these often as they burst with flavour and don’t require a lot of meat and have virtually no carbs in –

 so if you are watching your waist line give these a go.

You can Help Save our Rhino's!

There has been such so much sad news about the poaching of our precious African Unicorns – the Rhino. I want to just share this info with you …

if you have a friend or relative having a birthday, in hospital or just needing a good magazine why not buy them a copy of

‘Africa Geographic’s Rhino Crisis Issue at your local CNA.

They will donate R2, 50 per copy sold to Rhino Force PLUS you stand a chance to win a safari with &Beyond and Africa Geographic

where you will see rhinos in their natural environment and meet the people fighting to save them!

I wish you a wonderful Freedom Day!

As always

Buon Appetito

Xxx

jan