I went to a ceramic workshop call Doodles last week with Chris and where we both painted two items each. Doodles is a ceramics workshop where you can walk in, choose a pot, whether it’s a plate, bowl or whatever, and you paint it whatever colour(s) you want. I choose a cereal bowl and a small square plate and he choose a photo frame and a rectangle plate.

We both had a lot of fun and spent three hours in the workshop. Tomorrow is the day that we can bring our ceramic works back. We both can’t wait to see how’s our work turns out.

My job has been super tiring since the Fringe and Tattoo festivals started. We’re serving a much larger number of covers and everyone has been really stressed out. So, I decided to make this simple, quick but cheerful snack for one of our dinner dish tonight.

This deep fried prawn/shrimp rolls dish is one of the famous street foods in Danshui. Danshui is a very popular tourism spot for Taiwanese people and foreigners so it’s always full of people. Danshui was the place that the Spanish arrived in Taiwan and they also built a castle called Santo Domingo in Danshui. The Spanish were however expelled from Taiwan by the Dutch in 1641 and the Dutch built a new fort on the same site as San Domingo, which is known today as Hongmao Cheng.

But the funny thing is when I told my Dutch and Spanish colleague about this part of history and they don’t know anything about it. And I’m the one who gave them a history lesson for them.  So here is this tasty and super easy Taiwanese deep fried prawn/ shrimp roll recipe for you.

Ingredients:

100g pork loin including the fat, cut into small dice
12 raw prawns
12 cooked prawns, cut into small dice ( I added cooked prawns dice for the better texture in this dish.)
1 egg white
2 thin slices ginger, chop finely
1 spring onion chop finely
1 tablespoon potato starch
24 sheets of spring roll pastry

Seasonings:

1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper powder
1 tablespoon sesame oil
½ teaspoon sugar

Procedures:

1. Use a food processor to process raw prawn and pork loin until the texture turns quite finely without any big chunks.
2. Add all the ingredients and seasonings but not the cooked prawn into step 1 and use a spatula to mix it evenly.
3. Put half a tablespoon of prawn filling on the spring roll pastry and follow the procedure photos to roll it.
4. Heat up some oil to deep fry the prawn. Oil temperature should be 160C. It’s ready to serve when the prawn roll turns into a pretty golden colour.

How many this makes: 24 prawn rolls
How long to make:         Approximately 30 minutes

Photo credit: All photos were taken by Chris at: http://www.chrisradleyphotography.com