Breakfast in Kuching with Popiah @ Lee Coffee shop
Lee Coffee Shop or “Lao Lee” known by the local people, serve variety of local foods.
I have tried their Cai Tao Kueh and “Jian Tui” (basically it’s a peanut puff).
I love this Chai Tao Kueh and Peanut Puff.
Making of Popiah
This is my breakfast and I’m lucky to see the auntie making the Popiah live while I get the chance to record the process.
Get ready your Popiah Skin
Get ready your veggies
Place the veggie on top the Popiah Skin and stuff everything else on top 🙂
Roll it and slice it
You now have one great tasty healthy Popiah.
I hope you find this Making of Popiah informative 🙂
7 responses to “Making of Popiah”
The Chinese hawker version is made using rice flour wrapper, which is round – something like Vietnamese spring roll wrappers, but not see-through. These are bought in the wet market and can only last two days if sealed properly and refrigerated. Not many hawkers sell these anymore, I think it is because the skin is quite difficult to make. The spring rolls made using this skin wrapper can be eaten without deep frying. And they don’t last very long. Has to be consumed within hours of making if not fried.
This Chinese-style spring rolls are called “Popiah” in our local Fujian (Hokkien) dialect and as wherever there are Fujianese, there is popiah. Slightly different variation in filling can be found in Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan.
So the popiah spring rolls have lettuce, stir fried jicama and carrot, stir fried bean curd and bean sprouts, deep fried pork fat, braised pork belly, omelette, and sweet golden sauce. It does sound like a mouthful, doesn’t it? I like a lot of hot sweet sauce with it. Sometimes we got the ones with roasted peanuts.
Spring rolls, popiah or not, are spring rolls. The essence behind it is that as long as you can fold some fillings with flour-based skin wrapper, you can safely call them spring rolls. The fillings can be anything. Roast charsiu pork, chicken, vegetarian style beansprout and jicama, panfried lamb, cucumbers. Let your imagination run wild! Go crazy.
This recipe is the standard version of the kind of Popiah spring rolls made at home. Not that wild, but you’ll get the gist. Each filling can be a dish on its own. It does seem to look an awful lot of work. I was exhausted after cooking.
Ingredients
Filling 1 (pork)
500 grams pork fat
275 grams pork belly
Filling 2 (jicama and carrot)
1/4 cup cooking oil (or excess lard from the deep fried pork fat)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
250 grams french bean, sliced diagonally (0.25 cm width)
4 (250 grams) carrots, cut in thin, matchlike stick, about 3 cm long (alternatively, grate the carrots using vegetable grater or any grater with largest setting)
1 (600 grams) jicama, cut into the same size as carrots
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar (optional)
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
Filling 3 (bean sprouts and bean curd)
1/4 cup cooking oil (or excess lard from the deep fried pork fat)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
300 grams bean curd, washed, drained and cubed (0.5 cm)
250 grams beansprouts
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar (optional)
Skin
Lettuce, washed and dried
1 (40 sheets) kilogram popiah wrapper about 20 cm in diameter, alternatively you can use commercially packed big-sized spring rolls wrapper
Other condiments
Red sauce (recipe below, or store-bought sweet chili sauce)
2 eggs, beaten, fried and cut finely
1/2 cup shallot flakes (recipe)
Instructions
To prepare pork belly and pork fat
* Cut the fat into 2 cm cubes and stir fry them without oil in a wok over high heat for 10 minutes. Remove from the wok when the fat has turned brown and really dried out. Soggy fat does not taste good. Drain well on paper towel and store in airtight container lined with clean paper towel to soak up additional fat. The lard on the wok can be used to replace cooking oil to stir fry other fillings, if desired
* Boil the pork belly (whole) in a pot of hot water for 10 minutes, uncovered. Remove from the pot and drain on paper towel. When cooled, trim excess fat and chop the lean meat into smaller pieces. Set aside for later use
To prepare bean sprouts and bean curd
* Heat 1/4 cup of lard (or cooking oil) in a wok for 2 minutes. Toss in beancurd cubes and cook over high heat for 3 minutes, turning slowly using a spatula
* Add garlic, bean sprouts, salt and sugar, mix well. Reduce heat and cook for another 2 minutes
* Remove from heat
To prepare carrot and jicama
* Wash grated jicama and carrot under running water for one minute. Drain well on kitchen towel. This will remove the excess starch that will make the dish sticky and soggy after cooking
* Heat oil in the wok and add garlic, stir fry till fragrant for 1 minute. Stir quickly to avoid burning. Add french beans, carrots and jicama into the wok. Cook for another 3 minutes
* Season with salt, sugar and pepper. Mix well. Reduce heat to low and cover. Leave to simmer for 2 minutes. Remove from heat
To prepare popiah spring rolls
* Place a piece of wrapper on clean surface. Arrange a piece of lettuce on the lower part of the wrapper and spread half teaspoon red sauce above the lettuce
* Put one tablespoon of carrot filling and bean sprouts filling each on top of lettuce, try as much as you can to only put filling without any liquid, use a small colander-shaped spoon if possible. The liquid might most likely soak into the wrapper, make it soggy and difficult to handle also most likely to break while folding. Arrange eggs on top of everything
* Sprinkle half tablespoon of boiled pork, one teaspoon crunchy pork fat and some shallot flakes
* Fold the lower part of the wrapper to fully covering the fillings and fold in both sides in. Try to fold tightly but careful not to stretch the wrapper too much. Roll the whole filling to the end of the wrapper and place them on serving plate with the end of the wrapper facing down
* Serve with extra sweet sauce
Recipe for Red Sauce
* Blend 5 chilies in a blender till smooth
* Melt four tablespoon sugar with 4 tablespoons hot water. Add 1 tablespoon vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
* Add the sugar mixture to the blender and process till everything mixed well. Transfer to serving bowl
Note
If using fresh spring roll wrappers, place the wrappers flat on a flat plate and cover well with damp cloth to prevent the wrappers drying out. If dried out, the rolls will easily break when used to wrap the fillings.
Melika,
Thanks for taking your time to write such a long reply 0_0
The more I write about the breakfast the more I learn from you. I saw some other blog in Singapore writing such a fantastic review. The only different I am making a good progress is my morning breakfast getting exciting and a my cheap Blackberry camera taking such a crap photos! LOL
But really thank you for writing.
Love.
Netster 0_0
Haha.. My followers love to follow each other ^_^
Bro, you’re a popiah addict, I will send you to rehab, hehe.
(Singing) Baby I need a rehab yey yey yey…
Popiah is good for health! You should have it every day too O_O
Ohh btw, following each other is sexy 🙂
Mmm, that looks really good, I’m hungry right now.
I’ve had a peek around your site after coming across via MKL’s blog. I enjoy all the pictures, they’re great!
Hello Becks, Nice to meet you!
Since this is your first time here, a BIG ((HUGS)) & ((SMOOTCH SMOOTCH)) to you. –Warning, Netster is one crazy cat that love to hug & kiss people– 😀
Come, I bring you around for foods. 😀 I promise to bring you for coffee. MKL loveeeeee our coffee here without milk! Awesome eh 🙂
Thank you for your kind words on my pictures. Now, my energy level is up for more photos!
Also thanks for taking your time to comment 🙂
Mucks!
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