Fish Shanghai (Fish Spring Roll)

We can gauge the level of popularity or success of a particular food by looking at the number of variations concocted or created from it. In the case of Filipino cuisine, perhaps “adobo”, “sinigang”, “caldereta”, “paksiw”, “kinilaw” and “pancit” with their many variations and styles of cooking developed, are amongst the most prepared Filipino foods using different types of ingredients and thus, can be considered as also the most successful ones. I believe the Filipino-Chinese meat spring rolls or “lumpiang shanghai”, which I prepared and posted earlier, is also one of them.

While the original recipe primarily uses pork, many other type of meats have been successfully substituted and accepted, like chicken, beef, shrimps and combination thereof. Since I have been regularly shore fishing lately and have accumulated a lot of freshly caught game fish in our freezer, I thought of preparing a “fish shanghai” or the fish version of the known meat spring roll called “lumpiang shanghai” would be a very sensible and economical idea.

So for today, let me do my version of the well-loved spring roll using a fish from one of our recent catches from angling or sportsfishing at our favorite shore fishing spot along the highly diverse Rumassala reef in Galle City, Sri Lanka, namely, the gorgeous but not very good smelling parrotfish. :-)

As I mentioned in my Crispy Fried Parrotfish post, parrotfish have very large scales which are quite difficult to remove. As thought by a friend who is familiar with the fish, the proper way of scaling such types of fish with extremely big scales, is by starting from the lower part of the head and moving inch by inch down the tail. True to what he said, I confirmed that it was really a lot easier than when starting from the tail part.

The about one kilogram (2.2 lbs) of parrot fish which we caught during a short shore casting over the weekend, which I will be separately posting soon, will look like as shown below after it was thoroughly cleaned, gutted and scaled.

Cut up the fish into 3 large sizes and boil in a lightly salted water with a crushed thumb-sized ginger to counter the foul smell. Most white fish meat are soft and delicate, so cooking could only take several minutes after the water has boiled. Check the doneness by poking a fork on the flesh.

Remove the fish from heat, drain, let to cool and then carefully flake, diligently picking out all the bones and other unwanted parts until you get about 2 cups or more of white fish meat.

To prepare, the other ingredients needed are 1 medium onion, minced, 1 large carrot, minced, 2 tbsp finely chopped Chinese celery, 1 leek, minced, 1 tsp salt or to taste, ½ tsp ground pepper, 1 large egg, lightly beaten, 20 pcs spring roll wrappers and about 1 cup vegetable oil.

The procedure is quite easy. In a deep mixing bowl, thoroughly combine the onion, carrots, leek, celery, salt and ground pepper. Add the fish meat and carefully fold it with the mixture. The fish will be soft so light stirring is all that is needed.

Add the beaten egg and continue blending until the mixture is held together. Taste it and add some more salt or pepper if necessary.

Take about 2 tbsp of the fillings and wrap to about half an inch diameter spring roll. Continue rolling and wrapping until you consumed all the mixture. This is good for about 20 pieces spring rolls. But since mine have some really big ones, I ended up with only 16 rolls. :-)

In a wide non-stick frying pan, heat the oil and fry the spring rolls in batches. Cook both sides in moderate heat until golden brown. As I said before, observing the correct oil temperature is important. Have it too hot and the wrapper will get burn, cook over an insufficient heat and oil will enter the roll.

After cooking, thoroughly drain the excess oil from the cooked “fish shanghai” using table napkin.

Transfer in a serving plate. Serve hot and crispy alongside with either tomato catchup, sweet tomato sauce, Thai sweet and sour sauce or the Philippine “banana catchup”.

This could be served as snack, appetizer or as main meal with fried or steamed rice. Simple and inexpensive, yet very delicious. Enjoy! c“,)