Strawberry Banana Spring Rolls

Beethoven's favorite fruit being suffocated by frozen strawberries.

What to do with unused spring roll wrappers from Sunday’s dinner party, some overripe bananas (we seem to always have a lot of these), and a bunch of leftover untouched strawberries in my freezer?

Taking some cues from Mother Necessity, with a nod to the Philippine snack Turon, I set out my effects and started a pot of oil.

Turon is generally made with a filling of ripe plantains and strips of jackfruit, rolled up in lumpia wrappers, [sometimes] coated sparingly with brown sugar, and deep fried. I didn’t have either fruit on hand so I made do, substituting jackfruit with strawberries and plantains with bananas.

Leftover spring roll wrappers.

We keep the brown sugar in a plastic bag in the freezer.

I tossed the nanners in some lime juice to take some of the ‘old’ out of it. Then mixed in the strawberries and brown sugar.

After expectedly botching the first few rolls — they… exploded — I doubled the wrapping and flash fried them with the oil at near smoking point. Serve with sweetened condensed milk.

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1 banana, quartered lengthwise and cut into 1 inch pieces

1/3 cup strawberries, quartered

1 tsp lime juice

1 tbsp brown sugar, loose

14 miniature spring roll wrappers

oil for frying

- Set the pot of oil on medium heat.

- In a bowl, toss bananas in the lime juice. Gently mix in strawberries and brown sugar.

- Lay down one wrapper with one of its corners pointed at you. Put down 1 scant tablespoon of the filling about two inches from the corner, making sure to not take any of the liquid at the bottom of the bowl.

- Roll the wrapper until the side corners line up with the middle of the roll, then fold the sides over to the center. Overlapping is fine.

- Make sure the edges line up perfectly. Wet the far corner with water and finish rolling. Set it aside, seam side down.

- When ready to fry, carefully lower the roll into the fryer, pinching the seam down so it doesn’t unravel. The oil should be near its smoking point, somewhere between 350F and 425F depending on type.  I used refined canola oil, which has a smoke point of about 400F. Corn and vegetable/soy oils can reach higher temperatures.

- When the roll is browned to your liking, set on paper towels and wait for it to cool down before eating. The filling will be piping hot.

Note: Not for the faint of heart. The filling will steam up and try to escape. If a roll starts sizzling loudly, act quickly and carefully. Rotate the roll so that the place where the steam escapes points up away from the oil. If you leave it in there too long, it will break at the ends and start to leak so err on the side of not brown enough.