Indonesian dishes often take a back seat to Thai and Chinese in popularity, but I love the simple, earthy qualities of Indonesian cookery, where the flavours are rarely overdone. I would call this a spring roll, but it isn’t a roll. The fragrant spices seem unusual, but they are also prevalent in Dutch cooking the Dutch, of course, having once colonised Indonesia. A pale lager would be great with these.
Ingredients
- 16 x 20 cm (8 inch) square spring roll wrappers
- 1 egg lightly beaten
- vegetable oil for frying
- 1 Lebanese (short) cucumber
- 2 fl oz/¼ cup (60 ml) white vinegar
- 1 tablespoon white sugar
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- kecap manis to serve
Filling
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 small leek white part only thinly sliced
- 1 large red chilli thinly sliced
- 1 lb 2 oz (500 g) minced (ground) beef
- 1 garlic clove finely chopped
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- ½ teaspoon white pepper
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- large pinch freshly grated nutmeg
- 2 cloves > finely ground
- 4 spring onions (scallions) thinly sliced
- 4 eggs beaten
How to Make It
- To make the filling, heat the oil over high heat. Stir-fry the leek and chilli for 2–3 minutes, until the leek is silky soft. Add the beef, garlic and spices and stir-fry for 4–5 minutes, to brown the beef. Cool, then mix in the spring onion and egg.
- Lay the spring roll wrappers on a bench. Spread 3 tablespoons of the filling into a rectangle in the centre. Brush the pastry edges with beaten egg. Fold the end nearest you over the filling, fold in the sides, then roll up into a neat parcel.
- Heat 2 cm (¾ inch) vegetable oil in a frying pan over high heat. Cook the pastries in batches for 3–4 minutes, or until golden and crisp. Mix the remaining ingredients in a small bowl and serve with the hot parcels and kecap manis.
