I was chatting in the Victory in Walton-on-the-Naze with some friends including the landlady, Emma, and I mentioned I sometimes make Spring Rolls. Emma said she’d like some, so here they are.

Spring roll wrappers are easy to find and you just soak them in warm water for 10-15 seconds until they’re pliable enough to work with.

Lay them on a board and put some filling in the middle. Then fold the bottom and sides in to make an envelope and roll that up to the top.

You can deep fry them, but I rarely do; I just put a couple of millimetres of oil in the bottom of a pan and shallow fry them, turning as I go.

Method

Heat the oil in a shallow pan and gently fry the paste for a minute or so

Add the chicken and fry for another minute or so, then add a splash of water. This will help dilute the paste so the chicken is evenly coated.

cook for a few minutes then add all the rest of the ingredients and cook for a couple of minutes more

Allow it to cool and then wrap it in the skins as described above

Fry ‘em

That’s it!

Ingredients

• Two chicken thighs, boned (not like that! Who even are you?) and skinned and chopped into small pieces
• Two cloves of garlic, chopped finely
• A piece (up to you) of fresh ginger, finely sliced then cut again into matchsticks
• A spring onion, cut into little matchsticks
• Veg, chopped fairly finely. Whatever you have but I used:
  • a shallot
  • one head of pak choi
  • a handful of mange tout
  • half a chilli
  • a few coriander stalks
• a tablespoon of neutral oil
• a teaspoon of a shop-bought Thai paste. I used a Tom Yum one, but green curry or whatever you have would work
• a drizzle of Thai fish sauce

Dipping Sauce

You could just use a shop-bought thai sweet chilli or a hoi sin or whatever you have, but I made a nice sweet sour hot one for these:

• 1tblsp tamarind paste
• 1tsp sugar
• 1tsp sambal oeleck*
• 1tblsp thai fish sauce

* sambal oeleck is just a chilli paste. Any chilli paste or even chopped chillis would be fine