Comments on: Spring Roll

By: Haneui Lee

Haneui Lee — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 06:32:00 +0000

Hello, I made spring rolls and stored in the freezer. Do I need to thaw frozen spring rolls before I fry them? or I can just fry them from frozen. If these are frozen, how long do I need to cook for?

By: Marc Matsumoto

Marc Matsumoto — Fri, 11 Jul 2014 10:12:00 +0000

Hi Mickie, eggrolls and wontons use a different wrapper. The dough for egg rolls/wontons/potsticks is flour, salt and boiling water kneaded together (use a stand mixer to avoid burning your hands) until you have a firm dough. Then you just roll the dough through a pasta roller until it's the desired thickness (wontons wrappers should be quite thin, while egg roll and potsticker wrappers can be a little thicker)

By: mickie

mickie — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 23:33:00 +0000

Thank you so much!
Would I do the same for egg rolls or won tons?
Or do they have a different recipe?

By: Marc Matsumoto

Marc Matsumoto — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 09:36:00 +0000

Hi Mickie, spring roll wrappers are made with flour, water and salt. Just add enough water to make a thin crepe-like batter and then follow my instructions for making crepes: https://norecipes.com/5-tips-for-making-perfect-crepes-recipe-for-crepes-with-buttered-apples/ The only difference is that you don't want to let it brown. Flip it over as soon as the edges start to dry out. Unless you have a square pan, your wrappers will be round, so you'll need to adjust the rolling technique a bit (your rolls are going to be skinnier).

By: mickie

mickie — Tue, 08 Jul 2014 21:18:00 +0000

I looked over your site, and I couldn't find a recipe for the wrappers themselves, any chance you will add that? I would rather know how to make them than buy them. Healthier that way.

By: Marc Matsumoto

Marc Matsumoto — Tue, 03 Jun 2014 04:53:00 +0000

Hi Deelilah, so your mistake is totally understandable. There's a lot of confusion between spring rolls and egg rolls, and adding to the confusion is the fact that there's a difference between Chinese spring rolls and vietnamese spring roll wrappers. While the terms are often used interchangeably here's the definitions I go by: Egg roll wrapper - A thick large square wrapper with a slight grey or yellow tint made of a dough. It's similar to the wrappers used for potstickers and wontons, only bigger. These will work, but will give you a roll that's more crunchy than crispy and the surface of the wrappers will bubble when fried. Vietnamese spring roll wrapper - Round dried wrappers made of rice flour. They're sold dry and have a basket weave pattern on them and need to be dipped in water to rehydrate. They're almost totally transparent and look like sheets of thin plastic. These are used for Vietnamese spring/summer rolls and should not be fried. Spring roll wrapper - A paper thin large square wrapper that's translucent and creamy white in color. They're sold refrigerated or frozen. This is the type of wrapper you want for this recipe. You probably want to buy your wrappers based off appearance rather than what the labels say as they don't all follow a common naming convention. I hope that helps!

By: Deelilah Maye

Deelilah Maye — Mon, 02 Jun 2014 16:02:00 +0000

Hmm. First thank you very, very much for your response and suggestions! I've actually just gotten to the point where I can make egg rolls without a recipe but the store only had the spring roll wrappers so I (stupidly) thought how different can it be? I believe my wrappers were like yours, but I'm not sure, mine were almost plastic like and I dipped them in warm water prior to rolling after reading people suggesting that online. After reading your comment I realize that this and the filling being too wet were both probably the problem, when I buy the ingredients again I will follow this recipe to the t. Thanks again, I really appreciate it.

By: Marc Matsumoto

Marc Matsumoto — Sun, 01 Jun 2014 05:00:00 +0000

Hi Deelilah, did you use this recipe or something else? If you used this one, did you measure the temperature of the oil? A temperature of 320 F (which isn't super hot) should be sufficient to crisp the spring rolls. If they don't crisp, and your oil is the right temperature there are two possibilities. The first is that your filling was too wet, as described in step 3, you need to cook the filling until all the liquid is gone, otherwise the liquid coming from the filling will make the wrapper soggy and it won't crisp. The second possibility is there wrappers you're using may be too wet. They should be fairly dry paper-like translucent sheets as shown in the photos above.

By: Deelilah Maye

Deelilah Maye — Sun, 01 Jun 2014 01:04:00 +0000

I made spring rolls recently and had trouble browning them no matter how long I cooked them. I heated the oil very hot then and they got slightly more brown but kinda burnt looking and certainly not the even tan color I've seen on every online recipe. I even looked up that specific problem and found nothing. Not sure if you'll even respond but any idea why that might be? Thanks :-)

By: Marc Matsumoto

Marc Matsumoto — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 05:50:00 +0000

Hi Gill, there are a couple of possibilities. The first, did you use potato starch or another starch like cornstarch? Other starches have different thickening properties and so amounts would need to be adjusted. The other possibility is that the starch in the sauce settled and the resulting clumps made the lumps. If this was the case, you need to give the sauce a stir so the starch is evenly distributed before you add it to the pan. I hope this helps.