Pan-fried spring rolls
Deep-fried spring rolls are very popular throughout China and Southeast Asia, and whenever we go to a Chinese, Thai or Vietnamese restaurant we usually order them as a starter. But because they’re deep-fried they tend to be quite high in calories. So in an effort to lighten the calorie load we’ve developed our own pan-fried spring rolls that taste just as yummy as the deep-fried version but contain far less calories.
There are lots of different ingredients you can use in the filling mixture, so feel free to come up with your own varieties: Add some protein such as cooked shrimp or chicken; use other vegetables such as bean sprouts, shredded Asian greens like bok choy, or thinly sliced peppers; for extra texture add chopped water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, or roasted peanuts; throw in some herbs like cilantro (fresh coriander) or basil; and instead of rice vermicelli noodles you can use bean thread noodles.
You can also serve these spring rolls with a variety of dipping sauces. Apart from the recipe given, we’ve served these with a tasty dipping sauce made by mixing together equal parts hoisin sauce, lemon juice and soy sauce. Easier still, we just mix plain soy sauce with a little water to curb the saltiness. You can also use store-bought sweet chili sauce, or plum sauce. You can find spring roll wrappers in the freezer section of Asian grocery stores and large supermarkets.
5 tablespoons peanut or canola oil
1 carrot — peeled and grated
1 zucchini — grated
1½ cups shredded cabbage
8 large button mushrooms — wiped clean and sliced
2 scallions — thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic — minced
2 teaspoons finely grated fresh ginger
1 tablespoon soy sauce
10 frozen spring roll wrappers — thawed
3 tablespoons oyster sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
2 tablespoons water
