Spring Rolls – Vegetable and Tofu Spring Rolls

Spring rolls are one of the most common accompaniments in any Chinese restaurant you eat. Almost none of the restaurants serve it ‘in house’, but this is one of the first things we order when eating at a Chinese restaurants. With the availability of spring roll wrappers so easily this is something we can make in no time and the recipe works great.

This recipe was suggested by Anu Kollon of Ente Thattukada, for this month’s IFC. IFC or the International Food Challenge is an event organized by Saraswathi of Sara’s Yummy Bites and each month we explore a different cuisine. This month’s cuisine is the Fujian Cuisine which is also known as the Min’s cuisine that originated from the Southeastern coast of China. This is one of the eight major cuisines in China and is very famous for its seafood.

Once I made this dish, I was surprised that I have never made it earlier. It was very easy to make and I loved the technique of adding seasonings to the filling, which made it even tastier. I was always under the impression that the vegetables that go inside the spring rolls are raw. This recipe had cooked vegetables along with sauce and corn starch as thickening agent. I adapted the recipe to completely vegetarian.

Preparation time – 15 minutes
Cooking time – 30 minutes
Difficulty level – easy
Recipe adapted from here

Ingredients – Makes about 20 spring rolls

Spring roll wrappers – about 20 -24
Tofu – ¾ cup (cut into tiny pieces)
Cabbage – 2 cups (very finely chopped)
Carrot – 2 medium (very finely chopped)
Scallion – 2 (finely chopped)
Soy sauce – 2 tbsp
Sugar – 2 tsp (I used brown sugar)
Cornstarch – 2 tsp
Water – ¼ cup
All purpose flour and water mixture – to seal the wrappers
Oil – for deep frying plus 2 tbsp

Procedure –

Thaw the spring roll package as per instructions. I kept mine in the refrigerator the night before and it thawed well.
Chop all the vegetables and tofu into very fine pieces.
In a small bowl, mix water, soy sauce, sugar and corn starch and keep it aside.

In a pan, heat 2 tbsp of oil and add the chopped tofu. Let it cook until it is evenly browned.

Now add the cabbage, carrots and the scallions and stir fry for about 5 minutes until the vegetables are half way cooked.

Now add the corn starch mixture to the pan and mix well to coat. The sauce will thicken in about 2 minutes and everything will come together. At this stage, turn off the flame and let the filling cool entirely.

In a small bowl add about 3 tbsp of water and 2 tsp of all purpose flour and mix well. This will be the mixture to seal the edges. I used this instead of egg wash. If you are fine using eggs, then use egg wash to seal the edges.
Take a single wrapper and place it like a diamond with a pointed edge facing you.
Place about a tablespoon of filling on the top half of the diamond (close to you).
Fold the edge over the filling and tuck it underneath the filling. Now brush all the remaining three sides with egg wash or flour wash (I wonder how I came up with that name).
Fold over the 2 sides inside to enclose the filling (like an envelope). Now roll the spring rolls all the way to the end and seal the edge.

Repeat the same with the rest of the filling and place it on a dish seam side down. At this stage you could refrigerate the rolls covered with plastic wrap until you are ready to fry. I made this in the afternoon and then fried them before dinner.

Heat enough oil in a frying pan and deep fry the rolls, few at a time (I fried about 4 at a time) until they are golden brown. Drain on a paper towel lined dish.