Thursday, 2 July 2015

Popia Basah NomNom a.k.a "Wet Spring Roll"

Today is the Day 15 of Ramadhan.

About a month ago, Kak Ina requested popia basah from Sakinah and me. Popia basah? What is that? Never heard of popia basah. Apparently, the dish was quite popular a few years back. And I just knew its existence.

So, last night when Kak Ina invited us for an Iftar, I decided to make her popia basah. I looked up the recipe in the internet and found it in one of my favourite cooking blog. Browsed the recipe and I thought "this is easy. I can do this".

The original recipe uses vegetables as its filling. Since I am less interested in vegetarian menu, I decided to make my own filling using minced meat, just like the ordinary popia (spring roll).



Recipe:
Skill Level  : Intermediate

Filling:

250 grams       minced meat
1                      yellow onion (diced)
3 cloves           garlic (diced)
1/2 teaspoon   chili flakes
1/2 teaspoon   coriander leaves (finely chopped)
1/4 teaspoon    white pepper
200 grams       carrot (finely sliced)
250 grams       cabbage (finely sliced)
1 teaspoon      sugar
1 cube            beef stock 
a pinch of salt
1 tablespoons  cooking oil


Methods:

1. Add chili flakes, white pepper and coriander leaves into minced meat. Mix them well and let the mixture rest for 5 minutes to allow the seasoning to blend in with the meat.

2. Shallow fry the onion and garlic until the become softer and yellowish using a pan (non stick pan is preferable).

3. Add the minced meat into the pan and mix well with the onion and garlic.

4. Cook until the meat turns brown for 5 minutes.

5. Add all the vegetables. You may add other thing like bean sprout if you like.

6. Cook a bit longer until mixture becomes slightly dried.

7. Season with beef stock cube, salt and sugar


Popia Wrapper

2 cups      plain flour
2 tablespoons      vinegar
1              white egg
a pinch of salt
3/4 cup      water

Methods:

1. Pour all ingredients into a bowl.

2. Mix them well and knead the batter. The consistency of the batter is thicker  and elastic than pancake batter.

3. Rest the batter for at least 30 minutes. Make sure to cover the bowl with paper or foil or cloth etc.

4. Use a non stick pan to fry the batter. Grease the pan with cooking oil. Use medium heat.

5. Take a handful of batter and gather it around your cup of hand and then quickly rub the batter on the pan. Remove excess batter. The pastry is very thin.

6. The edge of wrapper will slightly curl in once it is cooked. To curl and peel it off from the pan, use your other clean hand.

Watch this video to have deeper understanding on how to make the wrapper. However, the person in this video did not add any white egg and vinegar into the batter.


Sauce

15 dried chilies
1 yellow onion
5 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon of brown sugar
2 tablespoon of sweet soy sauce
Oil to fry
Salt
Ground nuts (optional)

Methods:

1. Blend dried chili, onion and garlic.

2. Fry the blended ingredients until it well cooked.

3. Add soy sauce, brown sugar and salt. Mix well.




Making Popia (Spring roll)

1. Take one popia wrapper.

2. Put a tablespoon of filling that you made earlier on top of the wrapper and then roll it.

3. Arrange the popia on a plate and serve with the sauce. Otherwise, you can always use the ordinary sweet chili sauce or ordinary chili sauce.


My review after making this type of popia:

The wrapper can be tricky to make at first. The pan needs to be cool off slightly before next rubbing. But your effort worth! Delicious when serve while it is still hot.

Other version of popia basah ( this one is in Malay) : http://www.azlitamasammanis.com/2011/10/popia-basah.html

Happy trying!

Salam Ramadhan Al Mubarak

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