Duck spring rolls

Living in a small village in Switzerland (with no delivery services), it can be a bit of a trek to find good Asian food, so we often make it ourselves. Duck spring rolls started when we had some left-over cooked duck and are now a regular fixture even without leftovers.

While it takes a few more minutes to cook the duck upfront, you can start the prep for the other ingredients while it cooks, so it’s about a 30 minute overall prep time, plus 10 to 15 minutes to cook the completed spring rolls. It’s important to have all the ingredients ready before starting to assemble the rolls, so make sure you have a bit of space to do this.

Serve the cooked spring rolls with soy or sweet chilli dipping sauce.

Serves: 3 as a starter (2 rolls each)

Time to prepare/cook: Approximately 10 to 15 minutes if you have to chop and cook the duck first, 15 to 20 minutes to prepare the spring rolls and 10 to 15 minutes to cook them

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Ingredients

• 200-250g duck strips without skin/fat (you can also use a small duck breast, but remove the skin/fat first and cut into thin strips)

• ½ red onion or 1 large spring onion

• ¼ red (or yellow) pepper, cut into very thin strips

• ½ large carrot, grated

• Handful of washed coriander leaves, stalks removed

• 3 sheets brick pastry (like filo, but finer and more crepe-like in texture) – feuilles de brique in French

• 1-2 tablepoons of olive oil for cooking

• Optional: a handful of bamboo shoots

• Pots & pans needed: Frying pan(s), baking sheet or dish, chopping board, sharp knife

Method

• Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees C

• If you are cooking the duck from scratch, add a dash of oil to the frying pan and cook the duck strips over a medium heat (6 on scale of 1 to 9) until lightly browned (about 3-4 mins) then turn over and repeat until lightly browned all over

• Remove the dusk strips from the pan and let them cool for a few minutes before chopping them into small piece

• While the duck is cooking/cooling, chop the onion finely, then saute it for 3 to 4 minutes in the frying pan the duck has come out of until the onion is translucent and just starting to turn golden; remove and set it aside

• Wash the remaining ingredients, grate the carrot, finely slice the red pepper and remove the coriander leaves from the stalks

• Set all the ingredients out close to your workspace, leaving enough room to assemble the spring rolls

• Cut each circular brick pastry in half (each half is enough for one roll) – you can then assemble 2 rolls at the same time

• Add a few pieces of duck, a few pieces of cooked onion, carrot and pepper to each roll, plus 2 or 3 large coriander leaves, piling the filling towards the top of the pastry (furthest away from you) leaving about 1 cm border on each side and at the top

• Now the tricky part, rolling! It will come with practice:

1. Using both hands, gently fold each side border of pastry in towards the centre over the top of the filling

2. Flap the top border of pastry over the first folds and filling

3. Then gently roll the pastry towards you, keeping the sides tucked in to stop the filling escaping

• Place each completed spring roll on the lightly oiled (to stop sticking) baking tray with the seam side down to stop it unrolling, until you have 6 completed

• Lightly wipe a dot of olive oil over each spring roll to help it turn golden then place the baking tray in the oven

• Start checking if the rolls are cooked after 10 minutes and remove the spring rolls once they have turned golden and serve immediately