Healthy Thai Spring Roll

Fresh Thai style spring rolls make for a healthy alternative to the deep fried spring rolls.
Stuffed with mint, spring onions, minced pork and shrimp, the Thai style, fresh spring rolls are very tasty and healthy and make for a super entree to a main meal or as a healthy snack instead of crisps, biscuits or chocolate.

What you'll need:
Sheets of rice noodles or vermicelli
200g of ground pork. - You may change chicken
100g of shrimps- these can be left out if people can't eat them.
1 - 2 chopped carrots
3 - 4 spring onions
Fresh mint
3 - 4 cloves of garlic
Fish sauce
fresh limes
Oyster Sauce
Soy Sauce
Ingredients - 250g of beef marinated in soy sauce for an hour or two. 3 - 4 chopped spring onions, chinese mushrooms or other soft mushrooms, 3 cloves of chopped garlic, bamboo shoots, thin egg noodles, flour and some beef or pork stock..

Concept - Cook the pork and shrimps adding the spring onions and carrots which will be wrapped with the mint to make fresh Thai spring rolls.

How Many Servings? - 3 - 4 people comfortably, but don't over feed them with these if they are intended as an entree.

Serving Suggestions - Thai fresh spring rolls can be served as an entree or as a snack and should be served with a garlic and chili lime sauce. If the sauce is too much for a week night (you don't want to smell of garlic at work), either eat them without the sauce or reduce the garlic and chili content but don't substitute the chili for bell peppers.

Use a culendar to separate the noodles so they are not in a ball. Give them a brief wash under the tap and allow draining of excess water. Heat a wok / pan with a small amount of oil; justly enough to stop the noodles from sticking. Add the noodles and stir gentle until they start to get crispy. No need to let them go brown but it's up to you. Some people like their oodles crispier than others. Here we have used sheets of rice vermicelli from a Thai market but you can use vermicelli from the supermarkets. Prepare the dipping sauce of chopped chilies, chopped garlic, fish sauce and lime juice.

This will really enhance the flavor of the fresh Thai Spring Rolls. Add all the shrimps to the pre heated oil. Stir fry until just cooked through. Add the ground pork to the shrimps. Add a tea spoon of sweet soya sauce. Add the chopped carrots and mix in. Stir the noodles with the stock added and let the dish simmer for a minute or two. Add the chopped spring onions. Allow the noodles, beef and bamboo to cook through making sure the beef is tender. Remove the cooked mix to a bowel in preparation for making the fresh spring rolls.

Layout a single sheet of vermicelli and cut it to size that will be sufficient to wrap the ingredients for a single spring roll. Add a whole or half a shrimp (this depends on how many shrimps you have against how many spring rolls you wish to make) Add a tea spoon of minced pork so the ingredients are roughly equal.

Fold the sides in on themselves and trim off the lengths so as to not have thick folds. However, the vermicelli adds a nice flavor and so if you do not trim, it doesn't matter. Fold the ingredients into a nice roll or sack. Although the name says ""rolls"", you'll need a roll mat to get them correctly rolled. With no mat, you'll have to fold.

This i no way reduces the flavor, it's just the appearance which differs. Keep making as many spring rolls as is needed, but if you are serving as a side dish or enter, don't prepare too many as they can be quite filling. If serving as a side dish / entree, serve no more than 2 - 3 per person. Serve to the hungry !