Australia’s first spring roll was the deep-fried, Chinese variety, dipped in sweet and sour sauce at your local Chinese restaurant, and still a mainstay of suburban fish and chip shops. We loved it so much we even created the Chiko roll in its honour in 1951. Next to capture our hearts were various takes on the fried spring roll, as migrants from South-east Asia arrived. And the past decade, at least, has been dominated by Vietnamese fresh rice paper rolls – a strong contender for our national work lunch of choice.
But another roll is popping up in restaurants, one that until now has been mostly eaten in homes.
Popiah is a fresh spring roll that originates from China’s Fujian province, and is traditionally eaten during the Qingming, or tomb sweeping festival. From here it travelled to Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Medan, in Indonesia. Similar versions can also be found in parts of Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and the Philippines.
It all comes together in the most perfect balance of textures and flavours – crunchy, fresh soft, salty, spicy and sweet all at once.
While it can be fried, it’s the fresh version found in hawker stalls and homes throughout Malaysia that’s finally gaining popularity here. It has a soft, very thin, wheat flour wrapper or skin, which is layered with lettuce, a lashing of chilli sauce and sometimes hoisin, and an assortment of shredded and finely chopped ingredients, notably stewed yam bean. It all comes together in the most perfect balance of textures and flavours – crunchy, fresh soft, salty, spicy and sweet all at once. It’s so addictively moreish that you’ll be thinking of your next fix while still on your first mouthful.
Sydney’s restaurant specialises in Malaysian Chinese favourites, and have been serving popiah since they opened in December 2014.
“There aren’t many, if any, places in Sydney that do it,” says Hawker director Julian Lee.
Until now they’ve been something that many Malaysian migrants make at home. Shredding, preparing and cooking the ingredients for the filling is a fiddly and time-consuming process, so it’s often a communal effort. Families gather together for ‘popiah parties’, where these ingredients are all laid out and each person wraps their own.
“The biggest problem here is that the skins are difficult to get. Most families buy the skins frozen, unless you have someone in the family who knows how to make them fresh,” says Julian.
Making the skins is a technique that takes time to master, and is mesmerising to watch. You basically grab a large handful of the popiah dough, which should be sticky and elastic, and for lack of a better word, blob it down on a very hot griddle, and pull it back up. The part of the dough which touches the hotplate forms a very thin film, which lightly cooks to become the skin. You can only make one at a time, they are quite fragile, and you have to use them the same day. Because of this, Hawker only make popiah for weeknight dinners, and on weekends.
This level of difficulty isn’t the only reason popiah have taken a while to make it out of Malaysian homes and into restaurants here, says Julian.
“Malaysians are very picky when it comes to traditional food. When it comes to popiah, unless you can make it really authentically, it’s not going to be well received – especially by Malaysian aunties,” he laughs.
There is regional variation in the fillings used for popiah, but at Hawker, they stick to minced tofu and omelette, Chinese lettuce, lap cheong (Chinese sausage), crispy pork fat, fried eschalots and the key ingredient, stewed shredded yam bean, also called jicama, or bengkoang. “It’s the most important ingredient – that’s what distinguishes popiah from other spring rolls.” says Julian. A serve comes as two rolls, traditionally cut into bite-sized pieces, and served with chilli sauce.
buy the wrapper, make the roll
Popiah
At Straits Cafe in Melbourne’s Wantirna South, Aaron Tan uses his mum’s popiah recipe to rave reviews. “We make ours with pork and prawn, there are variations but that’s the way my mum taught me,” he says.
Despite a strong Malaysian community in Melbourne, Aaron says popiah is still not easy to find. He only serves it on weekends as a special, and people travel to the cafe especially for it. It’s been hugely popular since his parents first put it on the menu more than a decade ago.
“Popiah’s not something you will find in all Malaysian restaurants because there’s a lot of work involved in making it,” says Aaron. “You can’t keep the wrappers fresh for long, so most restaurants won’t do it on a daily basis.”
“Before we opened the restaurant we’d always have popiah at home for special occasions, every Christmas and birthdays,” says Aaron.
“Now that the restaurant is open, we can just come in and eat it, so we don’t do it at home,” he laughs.
