Popiah (Spring Roll)

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Popiah or spring roll. It can be the whitish wet version or the brownish fried ones. These spring rolls are popular local delicacies. The ingredients can include but not limited to eggs, prawns, turnip, carrots, peanuts, lettuce, parsley, garlic, bean sprout, sweet sauce, chilli paste (the quantity of chilli paste depends on the spiciness that you want it to be) that are wrapped in popiah skin which is paper thin wheat flour to hold all or some of these ingredients! Many people think it is the skin that makes or break a popiah. And the filling need to be well-drained before being tightly rolled or wrapped. The popiah still need to be moist but not soggy. Some vendors will add a dash of crushed peanut bits to make it crispy.

Kway Guan Huat Popiah
Kway Guan Huat Popiah at Joo Chiat
You can get popiah at most hawker or food centres. The popiah can be the deep fried version or the wet types. You can get a wet type spring roll as shown below for about $2 at Qi Ji. The ones containing prawns will be slightly more than that. The smaller fried brownish ones you can get for about $1 each.

Popiah or spring roll is not exactly a meal but more as snacks. Yummy, affordable and feeling snacks and certainly healthy with the many vegetables fillings!

Qi Ji popiah
Qiji popiah
There is another variant, the egg rolls. The egg rolls wrapper is egg noodle dough, while the spring roll wrapper is a much thinner rice based. There are many varieties of asian spring rolls or egg rolls. There are the Thai, Vietnamese, Malay, Hong Kong dim sum, Chinese, versions. And of course the Singapore version.

Spring roll
Ann Chin Popiah at Chinatown
Popular home-made popiah include Kway Guan Huat along Joo Chiat Road and Ann Chin at Chinatown Complex. At Kway Guan Huat there are storyboard and wall murals about the long history of their spring roll.

Spring roll is called as such because apparently it is eaten during spring season in China. Here in Singapore we simply called it popiah. The perennial all year round local favourite snack, as every season is the same :).
Location: Singapore

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