FORMULA FOOD - ROUND 17

CHINA = LUMPIA SHANGHAI (SPRING ROLLS)

Well there's a whole world of delicious Chinese food out there, but the search engine kept on saying spring rolls & I love spring rolls so why not? Mistake no1.

Mistake no2 wasn't really my fault. Sheffield has always been quiet multi-cultural & for all your Oriental needs, everyone knows that London Road is the place to sort you out. Not anymore. Where have all the Oriental supermarkets gone? There were 2 main ones & numerous little shops, which are now all restaurants/take aways. Why? It's not that difficult to cook & I would have thought that more people nowadays are having a go at cooking it themselves anyway. Apart from that, where do all the little Chinese ladies go shopping? So instead of buying lumpia wrappers (spring roll wrappers), I ended up in Sainsburys buying filo pastry.

Mistake no3 was my fault. I thought I would be health conscious & as I was having to use filo anyway, I'd oven bake them instead of deep fat frying. I have previously made weight watchers spring rolls & they were made with filo pastry & oven baked & were really nice.

Mistake no4 was saying half way through cooking -"These are really easy to make, I hope they don't go all sloppy in the oven!" After having a half time peek, I noticed that some of the eggy-porky-prawny mixture had decided to leave the comfort of it's wrapper & set up home on the baking tray!

After cooking, I did stick them under the grill just to crisp up their underside.

Conclusion: I have to say I wanted to hate these, but I actually liked them! Spring rolls they ain't - sort of spring roll shaped dim sum they are!!
Would I make them again? No. I'd find a different recipe & stick to it - spring rolls need frying!

For reference only:
Shanghai Lumpia:
1lb pork mince, 1lb cooked peeled prawns, 1 bunch spring onions, 200g tin of whole water chestnuts, 2tsp salt, 2 tsp pepper, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 2 eggs & lumpia wrappers.

1. Fry off the mince in a dry pan & leave in a sieve to drain away any fat or juices.

2. In a small food processor, separately chop up the prawns, spring onions & water chestnuts. Then put everything into a large bowl & combine.

3. Place a tablespoon of the mixture on a spring roll wrapper & roll up, tucking the ends in & sealing them with a bit of water.

4. Fry in veg. oil until golden, or bake in a gm6 oven for 15 mins & be disappointed!! Serve with sweet chilli dipping sauce.