Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking (43 page)

On that Chengdu evening, our simple supper of spring rolls turned out to be an exquisite little feast. Alongside a stack of the alabaster pancakes were a mustardy salad of “three silken threads” (slivers of carrot, stem lettuce and Asian radish), thinly sliced cooked pork and toon tree shoots (the tender young leaves of the Chinese toon tree) tossed in chilli oil, blanched wolfberry plant leaves with a sour-hot dressing, shredded chicken in chilli oil sauce, and a stir-fry of yellow chives with pork slivers, each served on an elegant porcelain dish. We filled the pancakes with a couple of chopstickfuls of any dish we fancied, rolled them up and ate.

Spring rolls evolved out of the “spring platters” (
chun pan
) that were served to mark
li chun
, the first day of spring. These were delicate assortments of fresh and finely cut seasonal vegetables to be enjoyed as a contrast to the meaty excesses of the New Year’s festival season. No one is sure when thin pancake wrappers became part of this custom, but there are written descriptions of Tang Dynasty spring platters that included not only vegetables (such as lettuce, radish and yellow chives), but accompanying “spring pancakes” (
chun bing
). Fried spring rolls of the kind that are so popular outside China seem to have been first mentioned a few hundred years later, in a Yuan Dynasty description of pancake roll stuffed with sugared fruits and nuts and finely chopped lamb. They are still much less popular in China than the fresh, unfried rolls.

In Chengdu, the pancakes are made and sold in the open markets for a few months, until the weather turns warm and humid, at the end of April or thereabouts. Women sit or stand over blackened griddles, holding a fluid, mobile ball of dough in their hands. They roll the dough lightly over the heated surface, where a thin, moon-like circle of the paste adheres. It takes a few seconds to cook. They turn it over for a moment, then place it on the stack of pancakes. Often the pancake vendors sell a selection of slivered vegetables too—radish, carrot, cilantro, celery, beansprouts—which they will mix and toss in a spicy sauce on request.

I haven’t seen fresh or frozen spring roll pancakes on sale in any of the Chinese supermarkets I visit: the yellow “egg-roll” wrappers are not the same thing. Making the pancakes at home is extremely difficult at first (and considerably more challenging than any other recipe in this book), but it’s really worth it if you fancy an adventure. If you don’t, you might try using steamed Peking duck pancakes, which can easily be bought frozen, as a substitute (you would need up to 10 of these). And don’t forget that the slivered vegetable filling can be served as a salad in its own right and that you can, if you wish, use other dishes as fillings:
Cold Chicken with a Spicy Sichuanese Sauce
and
Stir-fried Yellow Chives with Venison Slivers
are both wonderful.

The following recipe is enough for eight to ten rolls. For the filling, don’t feel bound by the quantities I suggest, or even by the particular ingredients: you just want a collection of vegetables of different colors. Serve these on their own as an appetizer, or with other dishes.

For the pancakes

½ tsp salt

2½ cups plus 2 tbsp (200g) bread flour, sifted

A little cooking oil

For the filling

4 oz (100g) carrot

4 oz (100g) Asian radish

4 oz (100g) celery

4 oz (100g) red bell pepper

4 oz (100g) beansprouts

3 tbsp finely sliced spring onion greens

1 tbsp light soy sauce

2½ tsp Chinkiang vinegar

1½ tsp sugar

½ tsp finely chopped or crushed garlic

2 tbsp chilli oil, with sediment

½ tsp sesame oil

To make the pancakes
Place ⅔ cup (175ml) cold water in a bowl with the salt and stir to dissolve. Add the flour, mix well and knead thoroughly to make a thick, shiny, wet dough. Place in a small bowl, gently smooth its surface, cover with a thin layer of cold water (perhaps ½ cup/100ml) and leave to rest for two hours.

Heat a dry, heavy-based frying pan over a gentle flame. Use a thick wad of paper towels to rub it with a little cooking oil and heat over a high flame to seal the surface of the metal. Then transfer to your smallest burner and reduce the heat to a bare minimum. Rub in a little more oil and use the paper to remove all but the merest smear.

Now comes the tricky part. First, check the consistency of the dough. It should be so soft and runny that, when you take a handful out of the bowl, you have to keep your hand moving constantly to prevent it escaping. If it is not sufficiently mobile, mix it with a little of the surface water in your bowl.

Take a handful of dough out of the bowl in your hand and keep your hand moving so it doesn’t flow away. Then sweep the handful of dough around the hot surface of the pan so a very thin, circular layer sticks. If there are any little blobs of wet dough on the surface, dab them with your handful of dough to pick them up. Keep moving your hand so the dough doesn’t escape and, when the edges of the pancake lift up slightly, use your other hand to peel it gently away. Turn it over for a couple of seconds, then remove it to a plate or clean cloth. The pancake should be just cooked but still completely pale.

Repeat with the remaining dough. Keep the hot surface clean: if any fragments of dough stick, scrape them off, then use a wad of paper towels to apply again the merest smear of oil. If the dough becomes too stiff, simply mix in a few drops of cold water.

Don’t be alarmed if your first few wrappers don’t work: it takes a while to get a feel for making them. And no one will mind if they are not perfectly round!

Keep the wrappers in a cool, dry place until you need them: they should, however, be eaten within a few hours of making, as they will stick together if left for too long.

To prepare the vegetables
Peel and trim the carrot and radish, then cut as evenly as possible into thin slices, then into fine slivers. De-string the celery and cut into fine slivers. Trim the red pepper and cut into fine slivers. (If your slivers are not extremely fine, mix them all with ¾ tsp salt and leave for 10-15 minutes before squeezing gently and draining away the water that emerges.)

Bring a little water to a boil and blanch the beansprouts briefly, until softened but still a little crisp. Refresh them under the cold tap and squeeze dry.

Mix all the vegetables together in a bowl. Add all the other ingredients and mix very well. Pile them up on a serving dish.

To serve the spring rolls
Pile up the pancakes on a plate and serve with your vegetable salad (or any other hot or cold dish you fancy, or a selection of dishes).

To make a roll, gently peel away one of the pancakes and lay it on a little plate. Use chopsticks to pile up a little filling along the center of the wrapper. Fold in the right-hand side of the wrapper. Then fold in the side nearest to you and roll away from you to enclose the filling; it will still peep out of one end. Hold the wrapper with the closed side downwards, so the juices don’t leak out, and eat immediately.

VARIATION

Slivered vegetables with a mustardy dressing
Prepare the vegetables as in the recipe above but, instead of the seasonings suggested, dress them in chilli oil with salt, a little mustard oil to taste (you will find this in Indian supermarkets) and a little sugar. Vinegar may also be added.

XI’AN POT-STICKER DUMPLINGS
XI’AN GUO TIE 西安鍋貼

If you wander through the tunnel beneath the Drum Tower in the old imperial capital of Xi’an towards the dreamily beautiful Great Mosque, you’ll find yourself in the back streets of the Muslim Quarter. Here, especially in the evenings, the air is awaft with aromatic smoke from portable grills and the scents of dumplings and other snacks being steamed or sizzled on outdoor stoves. You’ll come across steamed rice dainties scattered with candied fruits and sugar, sticky persimmon cakes, steamed buns stuffed with cumin beef or flower-scented sweet bean paste, lamb kebabs . . . and these delicious pot-sticker dumplings.

Few people can resist their toasty golden bases and slightly glutinous wrappers, their rich flavor sharpened by a vinegar dip. In other parts of China they are pinched into crescent shapes but I love the way they wrap them in Xi’an, with the filling peeping out from both ends. The dumplings can be filled with any kind of meat, mixed with vegetables, or with a vegetarian stuffing, but one of my favorites is this Muslim combination of ground beef and chives.

You’ll need a heavy-bottomed frying pan with a close-fitting lid. This recipe serves four as a starter. I like to serve them with a refreshing cold vegetable dish on the side: perhaps
Smacked Cucumbers
or a
Tiger Salad
.

For the wrappers

½ cup plus 1 tbsp (75g) all-purpose flour, plus more to dust

½ cup plus 1 tbsp (75g) bread flour

½ tsp cooking oil

For the stuffing

4¼ oz (125g) ground beef

½ tsp finely chopped ginger

2 tbsp finely sliced spring onion greens

½ tsp sesame oil

1 tsp light soy sauce

1 tsp Shaoxing wine

4 tbsp chicken stock or water

2 oz (50g) yellow or green Chinese chives, finely chopped

3 tbsp cooking oil

For the dips

Chinkiang vinegar

Finely chopped ginger

Finely chopped garlic

Boil some water in a kettle. Combine the two flours in a mixing bowl with the oil. Pour in about ⅓ cup (80ml) boiling water and mix briskly with a fork. Then add enough cold water to make a dough (about another 2½ tbsp/45ml). When it is cool enough to handle, knead until smooth, then cover with a wet tea towel and set aside to rest for 30 minutes.

Combine all the stuffing ingredients (except the cooking oil) in a bowl and mix well. It’s easiest to do this by hand.

Dust a work surface with a little flour. Roll the dough into a long sausage ¾–1 in (2–2½cm) thick. Form the pot-stickers (tap
here
).

For each guest, pour about 1 tbsp vinegar in a dipping dish, and add a little ginger and garlic (¼ tsp of each will do).

Boil some water in a kettle. Add the oil to a seasoned cast-iron frying pan or a non-stick pan with a lid over a medium flame, and swirl it around. Then lay the dumplings in neat rows in the pan. Fry them until their bottoms are toasty and golden, moving the pan around for even heating. Then add ½ cup (100ml) water from the kettle, pouring it evenly over. Cover the pan with a tight-fitting lid and allow the dumplings to steam for about four minutes, until cooked through (open one up to check if you are unsure). Remove the lid, allowing the steam to escape and the remaining water to boil away.

Remove from the heat, use a spatula to lift the dumplings from the pan and turn them upside-down on to your serving dish, so you can see their golden, toasty bottoms. Serve with the prepared dip.