Oyster Sauce Chicken Spring Rolls

With spring just around the corner, I thought we’d do some Spring-rolling. There’s something about savoury cravings that cannot be satiated  by anything other than something savoury. Not even a fudgy chocolate cake will do the trick. While I’m more of a sweet tooth than savoury, one bite of these oyster sauce chicken spring rolls and I cave.

These spring rolls taste exactly like what they are – chicken and vegetables. The oyster sauce flavours the chicken, lending a definite umami taste. I’ve also added chilli, lime and sesame seed oil to the filling mixture. Whenever I make these, I double the up. They freeze really well, which means you’ll have scrumptious homemade snacks on hand. In terms of cooking, I prefer a shallow pan fry, although deep frying will work equally well. Making spring rolls requires a little patience, but once you get the knack of folding and rolling, you can churn them out by the dozen. Fortunately ‘Mrs Fatima’ made the pastry for us, for which I’m eternally grateful. Lookout for it in the frozen foods section at Pick n Pay supermarkets. The texture is very elastic which makes it very forgiving and easy to work with.

Oyster Sauce Chicken Spring Rolls

Makes 14

1 pack Fatima’s spring roll pastry
1-2 tablespoon vegetable oil, plus extra for frying
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 shallot, finely diced
2 medium carrots, julienned
2 courgettes, julienned
2 leeks, washed and diced
125g mushrooms, finely diced
zest and juice of 1 lime
2 chicken fillets, skinless and de-boned, cut into strips
3 tablespoons oyster sauce
2 tablespoons water
generous pinch of dried red chilli flakes
freshly ground black pepper
black and white toasted sesame seeds
sweet chilli sauce, for dipping

Heat the vegetable oil in a pan and sauté the shallot until softened. Add all the vegetables and stir-fry on high heat for several minutes. Season lightly with a little salt and freshly ground black pepper. Add the lime zest and juice to the vegetables and stir through. Remove the vegetables from the pan and place in a separate bowl.

Heat a little more vegetable oil and the sesame oil in the same pan and fry the chicken until cooked through. Add the oyster sauce, water, chilli flakes and black pepper. Stir to coat the chicken.

Remove the chicken from the pan, place on a board and chop into fine pieces. The spring roll filling needs to be quite fine, which will make rolling the pastry simpler and neater. Combine the vegetables and chicken and set aside to cool slightly.

Place a spoonful of the filling at the corner of each pastry sheet. Fold, roll and seal the edges with water, as per the instruction guide on the back of the packaging. Shallow fry in a little vegetable oil until golden on all sides. Turn the spring rolls often as they can darken quickly. Scatter with toasted sesame seeds and serve warm with a sweet chilli dipping sauce.