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Popiah (which means
"thin wafer") is a Fujian/Chaozhou-style fresh
spring roll common in Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia. Popiah is often
eaten in the Fujian province of China (usually in Xiamen) and its
neighboring Chaoshan on the Qingming Festival. |
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Left: Closeup of a
popiah. |
A popiah "skin" is a soft, thin paper-like
crepe or pancake made from wheat
flour which is eaten in accompaniment with a sweet sauce (often a bean sauce, a
blended soy sauce or hoisin sauce or a shrimp paste sauce),
and optionally with hot chilli sauce before it is filled.
The filling is mainly
finely grated and steamed or stir-fried turnip, jicama (known locally as
bangkuang), which has been cooked with a combination of other ingredients such
as bean sprouts, French beans, and lettuce leaves, depending on the individual
vendor, along with grated carrots, slices of Chinese sausage, thinly sliced
fried tofu, chopped peanuts or peanut powder, fried shallots, and shredded
omelette.
Other common variations of popiah include include pork (lightly
seasoned and stir-fried), shrimp or crab meat. Seaweed is often included in the
Xiamen versions. Some hawkers in Malaysia and Singapore, especially in non-halal
settings, will add fried pork lard. As a fresh spring roll, the popiah skin
itself is not fried.
In mainland China, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan there are "popiah parties" at
home, where the ingredients are laid out and guests make their own popiah with
proportions of ingredients to their own personal liking.
Similar foods in other cuisines include the Filipino/Indonesian variant referred
to as Lumpiang Sariwa, fried spring rolls and
fajitas
(Tex-Mex).
