Oven Baked Spring Rolls with Mango-Ginger Dipping Sauce

Finally, a baked spring roll recipe that works: the filling is moist, flavourful and fresh tasting and the pastry, crisp. The dipping sauce is another story; I reduced the rating because of it.

There are quite a few little preparatory steps to this recipe that involve waiting time - nothing that’s too taxing until you get to the rolling but you do need to plan accordingly. While the tofu is marinating and then baking/cooling, and the dried shiitake mushrooms are being reconstituted, the recipe has you salt the raw napa cabbage, carrots and bean sprouts and let sit for 1 or more hours to draw off the excess moisture. I did all of this the night before so all I had to do was drain the vegetables, combine them with the other filling ingredients, and form the rolls.

I used filo pastry since I planned to freeze them uncooked and bake from a frozen state and wasn’t sure if this would work with spring roll wrappers. I used 2 layers of filo, lightly misted with oil, and cut each sheet into 4 rectangles to approximate the thickness and size of spring roll wrappers. The yield was 40 rolls and baking time was 18 min at 400F.

The mango dipping sauce, which starts with a purchased mango chutney, was too acidic and overwhelmed the flavour of the spring roll…..I think it would be fine with half the amount of rice wine vinegar and lime juice and with this fix, would be a delicious alternative to plum sauce.