Frying Neen Koe In Spring Roll Wrappers.

Every year just before the Chinese New Year, I will buy one or two "Neen Koe" (in Cantonese) or "Ti Kueh" (in Hokkien) or "Kueh Bakul" (in Malay). It is actually the Sweet Sticky Glutinous Rice cake. It is only on sale during the Chinese New Year.

This is the "Neen Koe" that I bought before the Chinese New Year. I allowed it to air dry and harden which will then be easy for me to cut into the desired pieces for deep frying. In its soft form, it is very sticky and not possible to cut.

Last week I had breakfast with my foodie friends and one of my friends passed me some "neen koe" and requested me to fry some "neen koe" snacks for our next meeting.

I agreed. I remembered I had some taro or yam in my fridge. Now I will have to get some sweet potatoes and spring roll wrappers.

 My friend told me that these were homemade by her friend.

I am not a very particular person, so I cut the sweet potatoes as best as I can. I don't want to waste any of the sweet potatoes.

 I also do likewise with the taro or yam. You can see that the sizes are not uniform. Then I got ready some cornflour mixed with some water for sealing the ends of the spring roll wrappers. I bought the spring roll wrappers, size 5 x 5 inches.

 These were all wrapped up. I placed one piece of "neen koe" in between 1 piece of sweet potato and 1 piece of taro or yam diagonally in the centre of a piece of spring roll wrapper. Then I wrapped them up and sealed the end with the cornflour and water mixture.

 Then I deep fried the wrapped up "neen koe" in oil over medium heat until the potatoes and taro or yam were cooked. I found these to be less oily than the ones deep fried with flour batter. The extras can be kept in the fridge and placed in oven to make them crispy again. 

The deep fried "neen koe" were all ready before we met again the next day for afternoon tea. I prepacked the "neen koe" for them to take home and kept some separately for our afternoon snack. We ate these "neen koe" with some sweet drink desserts at a nearby shop.

 "If a man has a hundred sheep,

and one wanders away and is lost, what will he do?

Won't he leave the ninety-nine others and

go out into the hills to search for the lost one?

And if he finds it, he will rejoice over it more than

over the ninety-nine others safe at home!

Just so, it is not my Father's will that even

one of these little ones should perish".

(Matthew 18:12-14, TLB)