薄餅 boh'bian [popiah]

The HogGiang [Hokkien] people are world famous for making boh'bian [the 'n' at the end of bia indicates the word is nasal], or spelled as "popiah" in places like Singapore or Malaysia.

薄餅 boh'bian [popiah] Spring Roll Wrap

It is a rolled wrap filled with a filling.  In Xiamen 廈門 the filling is made from shredded cabbage, bamboo shoots, pork and cooked until soft.  The wrap - boh'bian 薄餅 - then has a layer of sauce which is usually hai'xian jiang 海鮮醬 then a leaf of lettuce leaf, the filling and topped with seaweed.  For the wrap to be glued together, they use some sweet chilli sauce and you can use garlic chilli Lingham sauce. 

In the west, you can just call boh'bian as spring roll.  This is not the deep fried version.  It is a healthy version.

Ingredients:

a layer of spring roll wrap
sweet gem lettuce leaf
a teaspoon of plum sauce
fillings
nori - Japanese seaweed - as it is impossible to buy Xiamen seaweed in London - optional - you do not have to add this if you do not want to, especially considering the radiation problem in some of the seas around Japan! 

Filling - this could be made from anything and I just make this to suit my taste and the filling can include

175 grams fresh peeled prawns
30 grams dried prawns - soaked in hot boiling water
two chicken breast - julienne of
julienne of carrots [200 grams]
finely sliced spring cabbage [260 grams]
1 packet bean curd 炸豆乾 [炸豆干] julienne
600 grams of peeled, yam bean - julienne
200 grams finely sliced green beans or French beans

I stir fry the above filling with diced shallots with oyster sauce, soya sauce and sesame oil, and allow the mixture to cool and drain to ensure the filling is dry for wrapping. If the mixture is hot and wet, the spring roll wrapper will break. 

The cooked filling is allowed to drain so can be used in the wrap

There are a hundred ways to make spring roll filling, and you can add all sorts of other ingredients including julienne of lean pork, julienne of Chinese mushrooms [香菇 or 冬菇] and for those who love hot food, you can even add Burmese balachaung to spice up your spring roll.

The display on the dining room table

Plum Sauce

 Mrs Li Langley, suggested I use plum sauce instead of haixian jiang which can be rather salty.  Thank you Auntie Li for this suggestion.

The glue which brings the wrap together, taught by my friend XiangJun from Xiamen, the home of boh'bian

It is not possible to buy fresh boh'bian wrapper in London and XiangJun suggested using this frozen version, which works well,

The sweet gem lettuce on the spring roll wrap with some plum sauce on the top.

The filling on the lettuce leaf and the glue on one end of the wrap

The end result - the boh'bian