I was disgusted by a recent blog post I read on yet-another recipe of crispy baked potatoes in rosemary and olive oil in which the (female, natch) blogger proclaimed her potatoes to be crack. Granted, fancier small red potatoes were utilized, and there might have been some zesty twist but, really, it was just another one of thousands of baked crisp potato olive oil/rosemary recipe. Why write yet another snore of a recipe regurgitating the same? Really, your spaghetti and meatball? Probably not better than Barefoot Contessa’s. You know Cookin’ with Coolio is basically useless, free or otherwise.

And following above rant, I personally guarantee this to be the BEST US-based English version recipe of an “authentic” style Taiwanese spring roll, (that should enough qualifiers to cover my ass) or I’ll delete this post come February.

Ingredients
* 1 lb of char siu pork. Won’t go into the recipe here, but there are plenty out there. Or buy it from your fave Chinese restaurant.
* 1/4 head of cabbage, sliced thickly
* 1 large carrot, shredded
* 1 cup of pickled turnip. Buy Taiwanese. See pix.
* 1 cup of julienned bamboo shoots (canned, bulk, or otherwise, ok)
* 1.5 cups of green bean sprouts, lightly boiled, drained.
* 1 pack of 5 spice stewed hard pressed tofu (I chose Taiwanese imported brand, even tho VP Tofu is down the street from me)
* half a cup of chopped cilantro
* 1/4 cup of roasted peanut powder
* 1/4 cup of sugar
* dried chili flakes
* 1/2 cup of Yeo’s (or AGV) Sweet Spicy Sauce (you can sub with mixed sriracha, ketchup and sugar to achieve a balanced 50/50 spicy/sugary ratio)
* 2 tablespoon of curry powder
* soy sauce, salt, minced garlic
* a bag of spring roll skin. This is SUPER importante. Get the right kind.

Do not get the WRONG kind. The Wei Chuan (Taiwanese) brand sold in squares, as 春卷皮? NOT the right kind. The overpriced stuff made by Lung Lung (at least in Los Angeles, CA, US of A), is the “right kind”. Yes, it’s 400% more than the machine pressed version sold by Wei Chuan, but the Lung Lung brand stuff is much closer to the “real thing”.

If you want to be hard core, feel free to make your very own popiah skin per Sunflower’s recipe guide.

For comparison, here’s my Kitch3n’s spring roll recipe, here’s Kong Kay’s non-Taiwanese version, and finally, a French-Chicagoan’s take.

Procedure:
First, soak pickled turnip in water. Do not soak for too long, as turnip will lose intended purpose: saltiness.

Stir fry carrots in a dash of oil & salt, when pungent, pour in a cup of water, and allow to simmer. Set aside.

Re-heat pan, toss minched garlic into hot oil, brown garlic, toss in cabbage. When slightly cooked, in goes curry powder, and a dash of salt. No need to overcook by pouring in water. Allow some texture to remain.

Stir fry bamboo, with no garlic, instead, use chili flakes. Add in dash of sugar.

Then, heat 3+ cups of oil in a deep pan, scramble eggs, and swirl eggs, over a strainer, or a collander, into heated oil. Fry until golden brown on both sides. This will create a textured fried egg which is then chopped.

To roll:
Steam the spring roll skin.

Spread sweet spicy sauce as base. Double up on skin if you’re afraid of breaking. Sprinkle peanut powder and sugar mixture over hot sauce. Begin placing non-moist items over sauce/peanut powder base. (Think fried egg & strained bean sprouts):

Follow up with char siu, cilantro, carrots, etc.:

Brush the top of the skin with sweet spicy sauce as glue, fold both sides in, then continue to roll.

And.. Voila. Kinda. Sorry. I suck at rolling, but it’s tasty enough. Really!

Another blogger’s take on the 3 confusing names of the same exact roll.

A video from Taiwanese TV talking about a tremendous spring roll shop that has been around for 60 years, using fried duck egg yolk as a main filling:

And why is there no previous discussion of this AWESOME roll? Because 潤餅 is usualliy only eaten during Chinese New Years, or “Tomb Sweeping Day: http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/culture/folkbeliefs/index.htm