Ram Quảng or central-style fried spring roll is a very special version of Vietnamese spring roll that is mostly popular in Quang Nam – Da Nang. Unlike “Nem ran” in Hanoi or “Cha gio” in Saigon, Ram Quang is a lot simpler to prepare, yet is very tasty and unique.
Ingredients
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20 shrimps (~300g)
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200g pork
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Spring onion
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20 pieces of spring roll wrapper.
Fillings
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Shrimp: Use shrimps with the skin on to make the rolls more crispy after deep frying. Trim off the tip of the head, the end of the tail and the legs. Season with salt and pepper.
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Pork: Slice in very thin slices. Mince 1 spring onion stem to season pork slices together with some salt and pepper. If you cut the pork too thick, you have to stir fry them before rolling, otherwise when we deep fry, the spring roll is burnt before the meat is cooked.
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Cut spring onion into 2 inches long pieces and tear the stems into long strips with a tip of a knife.
Rolling
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Use small size spring roll pastry wrapper or rice paper.
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Carefully remove one wrapper and place one shrimp, one slice of pork and some spring onion at the corner and roll it diagonally starting from the corner.
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Stop at halfway and fold the sides inward.
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Continue rolling very tightly till the end.
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Optional: Seal it using a bit of egg white as glue.
Frying
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Heat a generous amount of oil.
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Use chopstick to test the oil, if bubbles come up meaning it is hot enough.
Gently place the rolls into the pan lRam Quang (Central-style fried spring roll)
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Leaving some space between the rolls during the first few minutes so that they won’t stick to each other.
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After a few mins it is ok to stuck more rolls into the pan.
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Deep fry until the rolls turn golden brown and place them on paper towel to drain off the excess oil.
Serving: Either
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Serve alone as a starter or snack together with some dipping sauce;
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Or wrap them in lettuce leaves or fresh green mustard leave (then it is called “Ram cuon cai“);
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Or serve with rice vermicelli and fresh greens together with some light fish sauce.
Good rolls should be very crispy with amazing fragrant of fried shrimps together with spring onion.
