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Cambodian-style Spring Rolls

A Cambodian-style spring roll filled with minced pork, mung bean sprouts, vermicelli, mushrooms, and served with a sweet-sour dipping sauce.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 29,030 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: wheat, peanut, soy, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

  • Sauce

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Put the pork and the washed, drained bean sprouts into a bowl.

  2. Cut soaked vermicelli into 5 cm (2 in) lengths.

  3. Soak dried mushrooms in hot water for 25 minutes.

  4. Discard stems and slice mushroom caps finely.

  5. Combine all these ingredients with the onion, sugar, soy sauce and fish sauce, mixing thoroughly.

Shape and fry the rolls

  1. If using small sheets, 125 mm (5 in) square, use one sheet per roll.

  2. If using large sheets 250 mm (10 in) square, cut in half.

  3. Take 2 teaspoons of the mixture and shape into a neat roll.

  4. Place at one end of the pastry square and roll up, turning ends in so the filling is completely enclosed.

  5. Deep fry in hot oil over medium heat, cooking the rolls for at least 2 minutes on each side so the filling is thoroughly cooked.

  6. Drain on paper towels and serve warm, accompanied by the dipping sauce.

Make the dipping sauce

  1. Crush the garlic with some of the sugar.

  2. Combine with the chilli and fish sauce, leave for 10 minutes.

  3. Add the boiling water, lemon juice and vinegar and leave in a warm place for 30 minutes for flavours to mellow.

  4. Stir in the peanuts just before serving.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Mung bean + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together63 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanol (resin, flower).

  3. Pork + mushroomtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,840 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  4. Mushroom + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Pork + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together18,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pork
Provides the savoury, meaty body of the filling.
Bean thread vermicelli
Adds a soft, chewy texture that binds the filling.
Spring roll pastry
Forms a crisp, golden shell when deep fried.
Fish sauce
Adds salty, savoury depth to both the filling and the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dipping sauce.
Sugar
Balances the saltiness and acidity with sweetness.

The step that matters

Deep frying the rolls. The filling is raw pork, so the rolls must fry long enough for the centre to cook through. Keeping the oil hot and cooking each side fully prevents greasy, undercooked rolls with a pale, soft shell.

Flavor stand-ins for the mung bean

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, mushroom, onion, sugar, sauce, fish sauce, garlic):

  1. Sesamebetter flavor fit
  2. Peanutbetter flavor fit
  3. Beansbetter flavor fit
  4. Mung beanthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, mushroom, onion, sugar, sauce, fish sauce, garlic. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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