Vegetable Spring Rolls

Ingredients

• 20 spring roll wrappers
• 300 g cabbage, shredded very fine
• 2 carrots, in fine matchsticks
• 150 g shiitake mushrooms, sliced thin
• 150 g beansprouts
• 60 g rice vermicelli, soaked and cut short
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• 20 g ginger, grated
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 2 tbsp cornflour, for sealing
• vegetable oil, for frying

Method

1. Cut everything fine

   Shred and slice all the vegetables as finely as you can. Anything chunky punctures the wrapper from inside, and the roll bursts in the oil.

2. Stir-fry fast and hot

   Fry the cabbage, carrot, mushrooms, garlic and ginger over a high heat for two minutes, then add the beansprouts for thirty seconds. Barely cooked — they finish inside the roll.

   3 min

3. Cool completely and drain

   Season with the soy and sesame oil, mix in the noodles, then spread the filling on a tray to cool completely and drain off any liquid. Warm, wet filling steams the wrapper soft from within and it will never crisp.

4. Roll tight

   Wrapper as a diamond, filling near the bottom corner, fold up, fold the sides in, roll tight, and seal the last corner with cornflour mixed to a paste with water. Tight rolls with no trapped air; a loose one fills with oil.

5. Fry at the right temperature

   Fry at 175°C, a few at a time, until deep gold and blistered. Too hot and they brown before the wrapper has crisped through; too cool and they drink oil.

   5 min

6. Drain upright

   Drain on a rack rather than paper. They freeze well unfried — cook them straight from frozen at a slightly lower temperature.