Taro and Shrimp Spring Rolls

To accompany the savory rolls, I quickly whipped up these easy spring rolls. Lately, I have been craving taro and been using it few times for this same recipe, mixing it with different ingredients. Mushrooms and taro, shrimp and taro, or taro with any ground meat. Some water chestnuts to add crunch is yummy too. Super easy to make and the frying part is not too bad with its tiny size - I just use small frying pan and just rotate it to get even browning. Or, of course a huge pan and do it all at once. But then I got to use more oil and I am not particularly fond on having some leftover frying oil. Feel bad to toss it after one time use, as bad as having it sit there in a container. Ick.

What:
- 15 spring rolls wrappers
- 1 taro, peeled and either cut to small cubes or shred.
- 1 cup shrimps, deveined, shelled and chopped coarsely
- 3 dried chinese mushrooms, soaked and choped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 small onion, minced
- 1/2 tbsp five spice powder
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 1/2 tbsp sesame oil
- 2-3 spring onions, chopped
- pepper
- dash of sugar

How:
- Heat a little bit oil in pan. Pan fry taro. Once tender, set aside on a platter.
- Toss in onion and garlic to pan. Saute until onion is soft.
- Add mushrooms, five spice powder, soy sauce, green onions, pepper and sugar. Stir and mix thoroughly.
- Add taro back to the pan and toss in shrimps. Cook just until shrimp turn color. Turn heat off and stir in sesame oil.
- Take a wrapper. Put about 1 1/2 tbsp of filling to the edge and roll it like a cigar. Seal with mixture of corn starch and water.
- Fry until golden brown.

For dipping sauce, version of Vietnamese style sauce is perfect, nuoc nam with lime juice, sprinkle with warm water and thinly sliced bird eyes chillies with garlic. Or, just bottled hot sauce. Hoisin sauce whisk together with lime juice and few teaspoon of hot chili sauce is a pretty good pairing also.