Chinese New Year: Vegan Spring Rolls With Peanut Sauce

Happy Chinese New Year!

This coming year is the Chinese year of the dragon. This year it falls on the 23^rd of January (Monday). Traditionally, the feast for New Year’s Eve will include meat such as duck, chicken and pig, but even Chinese people can be vegan (anyone out there, reading this, perhaps? Drop us a comment! :) so we have decided to veganise some traditional recipes. Starting with delicious and very popular spring rolls…

If you’ve ever tried making spring rolls, you’ll know it’s not the easiest task in the world! They like to come undone when you’re cooking them in the oil. It’s a bit of an art, and one that Emily and I have not quite mastered yet, but practice makes perfect (and that means loads more spring rolls to eat!). Don’t worry if you end up with “mutant” rolls; we had quite a few, and they were the tastiest of all.

Emily looking very fancy and Eastern

We have also created a peanut sauce that you can dip your delicious veggie rolls in. It’s incredibly rich and decadent, you’ll love it!

Wear something red, it brings good luck :)

Ingredients:

For the rolls: these ingredients are mere guidelines and can be altered as desired. Choose vegetables you like; these are the ones we like to try. Remember to taste as you are cooking to know if your combination is working for your palate, and tweak your recipe as you go along. Most importantly, have fun and be creative!

Carrot

Spring onion

Beansprouts

Cucumber

Chinese leaf

A dash of oil, preferably sesame

Salt and pepper to taste

Chinese style rice pancakes

For the sauce:

5 tbsps peanut butter

3 tbsps warm water

2 ½ tbsps Chinese rice vinegar

1 ½ tbsp soy sauce

3 tsps brown sugar

Instructions:

1. Bring your chosen ingredients in the quantities you like in the food processor. We chose equal amounts of gem lettuce and beansprouts, with a couple of chopped carrots, a few chestnut mushrooms and few chopped spring onions. Add 3-5 tbsps of sesame oil, or any oil you have, and blend for just a minute. You don’t want everything to turn into a paste; it should be a little bit ‘mushy’ but still mostly solid. This will simply make it easier to roll the whole lot in the pancakes.

2. Soak the rice flour pancakes (ours are from Morrisons) according to package instructions, then place a little bit of the vegetable mix in the middle. Fold two sides opposite to each other; then a third side over the vegetables, and then roll to the last open side to make a close cylinder shape.

3. Fry in some oil or deep fry them if you have a deep fat fryer. Or eat them cold if you like.

For the sauce, simple combine all ingredients in a bowl and refrigerate (or heat it up in a saucepan if you want it hot). 

Don't forget to look at the video for this recipe on our youtube channel!

Enjoy :)