Globecooking recipe : Sweet & Sour Pork Spring Rolls (China)

After making Sauteed Noodles with Pork & Bamboo Shoots, I had a small amount of meat left over - not enough to make a family meal for five but too much to throw away. I decided it would be perfect for making spring rolls, especially as I had everything I needed in the cupboards. This is a pure invention of my own so it may not be traditionally Chinese - it tasted authentic though !

Sweet & Sour Pork Spring Rolls

ingredients :

250g pork

2tbsp ginger wine or white wine

2tbsp soy sauce

1tbsp black rice vinegar

2tbsp sugar

1tsp Chinese 5 spice

1 spring onion

2 carrots

rice noodles

rice paper spring roll papers

oil for frying

Chop the pork into small pieces. Add the ginger wine, soy sauce and vinegar. Stir and leave to marinade for half an hour.

Pour the pork and marinade into a pan or wok and stir fry for 7 minutes until cooked through. Sprinkle over the sugar. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.

Put some rice noodles in a bowl and pour over boiling water. Leave for a couple of minutes, stir and drain off the water. (You can reuse some of the water for the rice paper discs.)

Finely slice the spring onion and grate the carrots.

Mix the spring onion and carrots into the cooled pork.

Add the rice noodles. Taste and adjust seasoning. We decided it lacked a bit of oomph so we added a bit of Chinese 5 Spice.

Pour some hot (not boling) water into a shallow dish. Immerse the rice paper discs in the water one at a time until they go soft and slightly sticky.

Place a disc on a chopping board or plate. Spoon some filling into the centre.

 Fold the two sides in towards the centre and press to stick them together. Fold one long edge across, squeeze the filling in tight then roll up in the remaining edge, just like a fajita.

Keep going until you run out of filling.

These could be eaten raw/cold as summer rolls or shallow fried as spring rolls.

Ours went a bit soggy and soaked up too much grease so I drained the first ones on kitchen paper but then they stuck slightly. With hindsight, I would use much less oil. The final ones were in about one tablespoon of oil because it was all that was left and they worked better. If you don't use much oil, do keep a close eye on them though because they will start to burn if left for too long.

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If you fancy trying other Chinese recipes, how about Crunchy Veggie Salad or Sweet & Sour Chicken? 

Adding to the #KitchenClearout linky as this used up a small amount of pork and also almost finished off some rice paper spring roll wrappers that were lurking at the back of the cupboard and were past their best before date - oops !