Vegetable Spring Roll

Description

Spring rolls are a large variety of filled, rolled appetizers or dim sum found in East Asian, South Asian, Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian cuisine. The name is a literal translation of the Chinese chūn juǎn (春卷 ‘spring roll’). The kind of wrapper, fillings, and cooking technique used, as well as the name, vary considerably within this large area, depending on the region’s culture.
Spring rolls were a seasonal food consumed during the spring, and started as a pancake filled with the new season’s spring vegetables, a welcome change from the preserved foods of the long winter months.[1] In Chinese cuisine, spring rolls are savory rolls with cabbage and other vegetable fillings inside a thinly wrapped cylindrical pastry. They are usually eaten during the Spring Festival in mainland China, hence the name. Meat varieties, particularly pork, are also popular. Fried spring rolls are generally small and crisp. They can be sweet or savory; the former often with red bean paste filling, and the latter are typically prepared with vegetables. They are fully wrapped before being pan-fried or deep-fried.

Non-fried spring rolls are typically bigger and more savory. Unlike fried spring rolls, non-fried spring rolls are typically made by filling the wrapping with pre-cooked ingredients. Traditionally, they are a festive food eaten during the Cold Food Day festival and the Tomb Sweeping Day festival in spring to remember and pay respect to ancestors. The Hakka population sometimes also eat spring rolls on the third day of the third month of the lunar calendar (三月三 sān yuè sān). The wrappings can be a flour-based mix or batter.